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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27124177">A Closure Problem</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandausdenurnen/pseuds/sandausdenurnen'>sandausdenurnen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>And Tony acted like a father to five, Daddy Issues, Five acted as big bro to Tony, Gen, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tony Stark-centric</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:42:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,908</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27124177</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandausdenurnen/pseuds/sandausdenurnen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Vanya had blown up the moon, destroyed the world, but Five refused to accept it as a fact. So he and his siblings travelled through time.<br/>Only instead of time, or space, they actually travelled across dimensions and landed at the doorstep of the new Avengers facility.<br/>Based on the ending of S1 Umbrella Academy, and Post Civil War MCU.</p><p>A story about Tony and Five bonding, from enemy to friend, comforting and healing each other's trauma because the two are so similar yet opposite.<br/>Both science geniuses, both have daddy issues, both experienced unimaginable trauma, addicted to alcohol, and suffered from PTSD from the end of the world. But one is a boy in his forties, and the other an old man with a boy's body.<br/>Them meeting each other must be fun.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) &amp; Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker &amp; Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>70</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>449</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So this is the English version of my own fic 闭合问题 https://archiveofourown.org/works/27050134/chapters/66041938<br/>Translated by myself and Google :)<br/>Please note that English is not my first language and definitely not my first language when writing fics so this is a new challenge for me.<br/>If you see errors please don't hesitate to point them out.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>What was the worst mistake you could possibly make?</p><p>Rebel against your father’s authority? Run away in a fashion of time travel? Trapped in a singularity in time, unable to move, and that singularity happened to be The Apocalypse? Missed the teenage years and youths, weddings and funerals of all your loved ones? Time-travel back at all costs (<em>What's the opposite of running away?</em>) and became a sinister Peter Pan? Even knowing all the right numbers on both sides of the equation still failed to solve the closure problem? Commit second-degree murder of the Moon?</p><p>It couldn’t be worse than these.</p><p>When the blue portal of time opened above his head, Number Five thought to himself. He could feel the warmth of his siblings in his palm. He could see their faces. They were old, young, and childlike at the same time; as shocked as him, tense, but with a strange determination. Thirty years times three hundred and sixty-five days and nights overlapped each other.</p><p>This time he was no longer alone. He would not make the same mistake again.</p><p> </p><p>Alas he was wrong.</p><p>The worst mistake he could possibly make had always been the next one.</p><p> </p><p>***</p><p>The wormhole spat them out, with a disgust that defied the objectiveness of physics. They fell onto the ground one after the other, six of them no less. Without raising his head, Klaus heard Ben moaning in a pretentious way. <em>Drama queen</em>. He thought to himself.</p><p>"I think I bit my tongue." Luther groaned; his eyes still closed.</p><p>"Then your tongue must be extra-long, because the rest is still talking stupid." Diego said, slowly straightening up, checking his limbs.</p><p>Vanya...Where is Vanya? Allison thought. Her throat still hurt very much. She had suspected to have been screaming loudly in the absolute void of space and time, all reality stripped away.</p><p>Vanya slid out of Luther's arms and fell heavily onto the ground, moaning vaguely. Her tuxedo was still white, and her face was pale.</p><p>Seeing her slowly open her eyes, Allison felt a sense of relief, mixed with a little bit of fear.</p><p>"Hey, guys...guys!" Klaus shouted, still sounded high, "Do you think this place is specially...exceptionally... bizarrely... bright?"</p><p> </p><p>Ben felt the bright sunlight penetrating straight through his body, and in front of him stood a wide-open space, almost as big as an airport. In contrast, the trees sticking out in the distance looked as short as new grass in early spring. The pale sky littered with very few clouds, coned over the whole open space like a candle extinguisher. Ben contemplated on what could be the use of such a large space. Things that were parked within...was that an airplane? No, they were too small, maybe only able to carry two people at most...and standing on the edge, neatly lined up in a row were a group of medieval armours, but bigger...like Terracotta Warriors.</p><p>He walked up close, and he could clearly see the reflection in front of him. The evasive images of his siblings, scattered, beaten, all over the place like the messes they were...</p><p>Reflection?</p><p>With a sharp sound of siren, the open space disappeared.</p><p>In front of Ben stood a pair of two-storey-tall screens, wide as the parking lot he had seen, shining bright red with a huge, bold black "Warning" sign.</p><p>He staggered as he watched those "terracotta warriors" flew out of thin air, blade-sharp silver lights shooting out of the slits of their eyes, instantly surrounding them.</p><p> </p><p>"Damn...Five? Number Five!" Howled Diego. "What is going on? What is this place? Where did you take us? Hey, Five!"</p><p> </p><p>Number Five wanted to unscrew Diego's head.</p><p>If he weren’t feeling so tired right now, his ears rang, and he could barely lift himself up, he might have done just that.</p><p>His vision stopped shaking, gradually became clearer, and the first thing Five saw was a pair of boots--to be precise, more like leg armours made of some kind of synthetic metal-- suspended a few inches above the ground with blue fuel supporting from underneath. </p><p>His mind cleared in an instance.</p><p> </p><p>"Don't even think about doing anything stupid." said a voice from above--in English, thank God. "Raise your hands above your heads. I need you to kneel back down on the ground, sir, the one who just stood up."</p><p>Klaus thumped back on his knees once again.</p><p> </p><p>In front of them lied a circle of silver-grey armours, floating mid-air, a total of five. One floor above them, standing behind the metal railings, a larger and more powerful steel blue armour marched. His right arm stretched out, the front seemingly concentrating some sort of energy, exuding a subtle white light, and the stuff on his shoulders were easier to identify--Five recognized immediately that being a six-point Gatling gun.</p><p>Fuck. Five thought.</p><p>He really screwed the pooch on this one.</p><p> </p><p>"I am warning you: you are trespassing earth, and this is private property, so you have committed two counts of offense here." The one in the blue armour said. "No matter which planet you came from, I suggest you take flights immediately, as fast as you came."</p><p>"What is this guy on about?" Diego turned his head and whispered.</p><p>"I don't know." Luther said, "but we seem to be on earth."</p><p>"Genius, Luther," Klaus said. "At least we got the first step, am I right?"</p><p>"Shut up, you idiots." Number Five said through gritted teeth.</p><p>Vanya whimpered on the ground. She hadn't fully regained her consciousness.</p><p>"Excuse me, sir..." Luther said, "Or ma'am. I don't mean to have any gender stereotypes here... We didn’t know this was your property. If it is convenient, can you please tell us where we are? And point us to the nearest bus stop..."</p><p>"What year is this?" Diego demanded. "And the exact date? Hey! Don't point that thing at us! We are not armed!"</p><p>Allison looked at Vanya, then at Five, her eyes anxious, and she made a jumping gesture with her hand.</p><p>"No..." He responded, "Even if I could, I don't think that’s a good idea."</p><p>"Quiet!" The blue armour yelled, "I said! Hands on the back of your heads, knees on the ground! I give you five seconds to return to your own planet. Five, four—"</p><p>"What the hell is he talking about?" Klaus said, lying on the ground. "What drug is he on to get this high? I wanna try!"</p><p>Five clenched his fists. The space in the palm of his hand began to distort--no, this was not a good idea. But if that fat blue cat really wanted to shoot, he had no choice...<em>Jesus, what is this place?</em> Even the most advanced machines in the Temps Commission were no compare to the maturity of these mass-produced metal soldiers, let alone the blue one...Is there a human behind it? Or it was just a program? In any case, Five had no intention to allow him to count to one.</p><p>"Three, two--"</p><p>Twelve drones suddenly appeared and flew towards the surrounded. The drones were the size of seagulls, silent, and did not appear to be carrying any weapon, aiming precisely at their hands and feet. Before Five could react, Diego had already raised his hand, and the twelve drones suddenly stopped mid-air, half a second later, fell onto the ground like thrown-away toys.</p><p>The blue machine seemed shocked, and showed no response for a moment.</p><p>Luther jumped up, picking the nearest set of armours, and smashed them into the floor. Diego continued to use his powers to push away the other armours, only for a short distance--that was probably his limit as of now.</p><p>"Klaus!" Ben called out. "Quick! I can deal with the one upstairs!"</p><p>Klaus reminisced on the power he had in the theatre, but before he had time to focus, his hand was seized by Five, who also held Allison with the other hand.</p><p>"Luther! Diego!" He shouted to the low number brothers, "Grab Vanya!"</p><p>He was going to teleport them out. It didn’t have to be another time travel, just jump out of here--</p><p> </p><p>His focus was broken by the screams of his brothers.</p><p>A laser beam swept over, tearing the concrete floor like cutting a piece of cake. Lime and broken stones splashed everywhere. At that very moment, Five thought the Apocalypse might as well just happened. When his vision recovered, Luther and Diego had been pressed tightly under the body of two armours; Allison protected Vanya, her head clamped to the earth by a metal arm; while she desperately stroke the iron hand that was holding her neck. Five had only jumped less than a meter, his hand still holding Klaus's. The ground between them had fragmented, as if an earthquake had just happened.</p><p>Loud footsteps stepped on the cracked floor from afar, moving closer. For the first time, Five saw something that looked like a human being in this weird place. About two dozen soldiers ran down, or perhaps security personnel, wearing light armour covering their chest, abdomen, shoulders, arms, and legs. Every single one of them pointed a strangely shaped white gun at them.</p><p>"Star Wars..." Diego rasped.</p><p>This was the last phrase he could utter before he was knocked out.</p><p> </p><p>"Oh God, there’s a kid in here..."</p><p>"What are you talking about? Happy, are you serious?"</p><p>"They kidnapped a child... he looks completely human..."</p><p> </p><p>Five watched his siblings being dragged away by the grey machines helplessly--his endurance had almost bottomed out. Even if he could save one or two of them, what about the rest? Not to mention if he acted irrationally, there was no guarantee that the long-silent Gatling gun wouldn’t just go off. If he jumped out by himself, then it would be hard to get a second change to get into this heavily guarded place. Now they treated him like a child, and they hadn’t seen his powers clearly. This is an opportunity...Five felt pain, and soon realized it was not just psychological. The shrapnel wound on his right abdomen had opened up again, and the blood had already soaked the sweater.</p><p>Allison was the only one who was still conscious. Maybe because she couldn’t speak a word, maybe because she looked weak enough. When she was dragged away, she looked over at Five with desperate eyes.</p><p>"I WILL come to get you." He tried his best to respond with his eyes, "I will come and get you. Every single one of you."</p><p>He hoped that Allison's power could work the other way, like being able to read his mind or something. But this was just a fantasy.</p><p> </p><p>The blue suit lowered against him, cold iron arm lifting him up with an unexpected gentle touch.</p><p>"God," Said the familiar voice, the steel face plate lifted up, revealing a thin face of an African American. "You are right. He is just a kid."</p><p>So it <em>was</em> controlled by a human. Five thought. Or was it a person's head planted on top of a metal armour?</p><p>"The kid is injured." Beside him, a large guy squatted, wearing a suit and no light armour like the rest of the securities. "Rhodes, he needs help."</p><p>"Friday." Said the blue suit of armour called "Rhodes". "Notify the medical team to prepare the infirmary."</p><p>Friday? Five thought in confusion. What Friday? <em>Today is Friday?</em></p><p>"Boy, are you Okay? What's your name?" The big man—probably "Happy"—asked. Although he didn’t seem happy.</p><p>Five decided to pretend that he hurt too much to talk. It did not require too much acting chops.</p><p>"He's bleeding...Hey, kid, relax, I won't hurt you...Christ, Rhodey. Come and have a look."</p><p>"This is...how did it happen? Shotgun blast? A grenade? Who would do this to a kid?"</p><p>"Bunch of sick bastards."</p><p>Five wanted to laugh. If his siblings were here, he would laugh with all of them. But they were not. He felt angry, guilty, regret, tired, and in pain. No matter how hilarious these two idiots sounded, at least they got one thing right. His wound hurt like hell. The painkillers he took at the academy had long since worn off.</p><p>He felt that he should fake passing out in case they found him rolling his eyes to the back of his head.</p><p>But when Five tried to relax his body and closed his eyes, he realized there was no need to pretend.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>When Number Five woke up again, the first thing he saw was a slowly rotating ceiling fan.</p><p>He lowered his head and realised all of his clothes had been changed, which made him uncomfortable for a second. Now, he was wearing a light blue hospital gown, thin as a piece of paper, and an IV drip was hanging over his head, the other end connected to his bare forearm. He couldn’t feel the wound in his abdomen, just as he almost couldn’t feel his own head. No matter what they had given him, the effect of the medicine had not completely worn off.</p><p>This meant not much time had passed since.</p><p>He began to observe the surrounding environment. It was easier than he would have imagined, because he was in a room with fully transparent glasses, so was the room next to him, and so on. He could see all the way until the end of the hallway with one glance. In front of him, dark green shades from trees outdoors and the still bright afternoon sunlights shone through. Good news was, it was still daytime, so it really hadn't been too long. Bad news was, he tried his best to look passed the end of the windowpane, but could not see the wide open space paved with concrete that he had seen before. Was he no longer in the same building? Or was this the other side of the building? Were his family still here? If they were sent somewhere else...</p><p>A short, repetitive cue of music popped into his ears, like those music played on a service hotline when they put you on hold; the kind that would drive you crazy if you listened for more than a few minutes. Before Five could figure out where the sound came from, a young, slim nurse lady walked in, went straight up to the glass wall on his right, and clicked at a seemingly random spot. Out of nowhere, a blue dialog box popped up with a two-letter abbreviation, possibly the name of the correspondent.</p><p>"This is Jane," The young nurse said. "Yes, Mary has sent the equipment to B block...Oh, no, Jeff is still there, but the doctor thinks a female nurse might be more suitable."</p><p>Five needs to hold his breath to prevent her from noticing his nervousness.</p><p>"Yes. I’m the only one here right now." Jane continued, "No, it's okay, it's just a little guy. I can handle it."</p><p>Five made a noise on purpose. It didn't take long for Jane to hang up the communication. She heard him muttering and turned around to check on him, a little surprised.</p><p>"Look who’s up?" She said in a soft, dramatic, but not-annoying voice. "Hi, how are you feeling, love? The doctor said you were supposed to sleep till night."</p><p>Five lowered his head, avoided eye contact with her, and scratched his wound with one hand. He tried to groan like a child as much as possible.</p><p>"Oh, what's the matter? Are you still in pain?" She leaned down to where he was scratching. "It is just in your head, love. If you don't touch it..."</p><p>She did not finish the sentence.</p><p>Five quickly held the IV-stand with the same hand that knocked the nurse down to prevent it from falling and making noise. He pulled the needle out of his arm, looked around for a second, then blinked into the empty ward at the end of the corridor.</p><p> </p><p>The door on the opposite side read "Nurse’s Office". Unlike this side, the opposite rooms looked like they belonged to the medical professionals and were thus opaque.</p><p>Five closed his eyes, imagining the space behind the opaque white door, drawing gridlines in his head, setting up coordinates, boundary conditions and initial values, calculating the velocity fields and...He opened his eyes and found himself in the office.</p><p>The office was not a big one, and no one was inside. There were three tables in the room, each had a thin, upright plastic panel on it. Two of those panels were blue and the other was transparent, like a piece of ice under room temperature. He walked over with a weird curiosity, the plastic board noticed his presence and suddenly lit up, made him jump a little...just like the glass wall in his ward. He thought. <em>Is this a computer screen</em>?</p><p>Something made a beep, and the door opened from the outside.</p><p>A male nurse strode in, staring at the case files in his hand. The edge of his vision caught Five as he was still staring at the computer screen.</p><p>"...How did you get in?" The nurse asked.</p><p>"Fuck." Five whispered, "Jeff..."</p><p>Jeff froze for a moment, then looked down at his name tag. Well, he could see his name was Jeff alright, but that didn’t explain...</p><p>Five disappeared.</p><p>Jeff's back suddenly bent back over a chair, with circles of IV tubes around his neck. His eyes struck wide open and he wanted to scream, but only made out some roughened, strained cough. He passed out quickly and the medical records in his hand scattered all over the floor.</p><p>Five threw away the IV tubes and picked up the medical records. There were only two cases, one was his own, and the other one was the record of a woman whose outer larynx muscle was lacerated, and her vocal cord damaged...Allison.</p><p>He remembered that Jane nurse.</p><p>
  <em>"Mary has sent the equipment to B block...the doctor thinks a female nurse might be more suitable."</em>
</p><p>B block. Where the hell is B block?</p><p>Maybe he could find a map on that computer...Five straightened up, but got his answer before he even reached any of the computers.</p><p>In front of him, a large fire evacuation plan covered the wall.</p><p> </p><p>Vanya felt really sick.</p><p>Not only was her head about to split in pain, at the same time her ears kept humming irregularly like tidal waves hitting some reefs, but her chest was empty--these sounds weren’t real. She had absolutely zero strength left. Memories from all sources came like tides, like blood gushing out of an empty corridor. She saw a dazzling light, and the faces of her brothers withered away like sand from dunes in the light; a lonesome moon; a chimpanzee with two antlers piercing through its heart; a mother, heartbroken; a smiling face--petty, short, muscles twitching, missing an eye; "Nothing. Vanya." A young voice, trembling like an old violin string, "<em>(the future has)</em> Absolutely nothing."</p><p>…and Allison.</p><p>Vanya opened her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>"She's awake!" Klaus called out. "She's awake! Hey, Vanya!"</p><p>No...No No No No No No.</p><p>"Leave her alone, Klaus." Ben snapped at him, "Give poor Vanya some time."</p><p>She didn't want to wake up. She didn't want to live. She didn't want anything.</p><p>She didn't want to exist.</p><p>Allison knocked on the glass wall, desperately and eagerly.</p><p>"Great." Diego said, "We just need someone who can blow up these cages. Hey, sister, do you want to destroy this world too? ’Cause frankly, I don't care."</p><p>"Diego!" Luther's voice.</p><p>The moon.</p><p>Vanya's vision suddenly cleared.</p><p>Yes.</p><p>She had murdered the moon.</p><p> </p><p>She wanted so badly to stand beside her.</p><p>Allison thought.</p><p>She wanted to stand beside Vanya right now even if God took her voice away for good.</p><p>But she couldn't. She couldn't stand beside anyone.</p><p>She could see Luther, Diego. On the other side of her was Klaus, followed by Vanya. They were kept in transparent cages in a row like some lab mice, but no one could reach anyone else.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>What is this place?</em>
</p><p>Vanya got up. At this moment, she noticed her hands and feet were bound by metal shackles.</p><p>No... Not here. Not this again.</p><p>She began to panic.</p><p>Her heart started to race and pump like a short-circuited motor.</p><p> </p><p>"Five?" Luther jumped, startled. "How did you--"</p><p>"No questions. I need the energy." Five blinked completely out of thin air, "Listen, the second you get to the other side, run and don't look back."</p><p>"I don't underst-ahhhhh!”</p><p>As soon as Luther's voice faded, he found himself on the other side of the cell wall.</p><p>"What the shit are you wearing-ahhhhhh!"</p><p>Next second, Diego stood next to Luther.</p><p>"..." Allison looked worriedly at the Five who blinked into her cell. His face was pale, with fine streaks of sweats rolling off his forehead.</p><p>But she could not speak a word. When she opened her mouth again, she was already standing with Luther and Diego. Luther had torn off the metal shackles that bound his hands, and smashed Diego’s leg shackles, then moved to Allison's...</p><p>Five almost fell into Klaus's arms.</p><p>"Oh, Fivey!" Klaus murmured.</p><p>"Not a single word." He gritted his teeth. With a flash of blue light, Klaus appeared on the other side of the cell, his skin almost sticky from the glass.</p><p>The alarm went off abruptly.</p><p>"Shit..." Five cursed. He had just entered the cell where Vanya was held. He didn't know what triggered the alarm. Maybe the imperfect jump touched the border, maybe some tracking devices were embedded within the shackles, or maybe the world just hated him.</p><p>He grabbed Vanya's wrist.</p><p>"Five..." She had only regained consciousness and destroyed an entire world not long ago, but at this moment, she was as innocent as a newborn baby, sorrowful, disoriented, weeping softly. Five felt sorry for her. If he had time, he would tell her it was never her fault.</p><p>But right now he needed to focus, concentrate all energy on his calculations.</p><p>The surrounding space distorted, twitching for a while, then spat them out like an unwilling oesophagus.</p><p>Five opened his eyes, head-spinning and almost puked on the spot. Vanya was still on this side of the cage. They didn't jump at all, they just... trembled, like a ripple in space.</p><p>
  <em>Fuck.</em>
</p><p>He focused on calculation again. No. His algorithm was correct, but his strength had hit the bottom of the tank. The CPU burned, smoked, and scrapped. He could no longer teleport anyone, not even himself.</p><p>Footsteps came from far and quickly moved closer. Security personnel wearing white soft armour appeared at the other end of the corridor. At the same time, the blue mechanical suit with heavy weapons flew over the railing.</p><p> </p><p>Gunfire blasted out like fireworks on New Year's Eve.</p><p>Klaus's legs had just been freed with Luther's help. He screamed and ran forward with the rest of the siblings, looking for cover.</p><p>Vanya's pupils tightened in a spree of panic. Her iris turned silver-white and blue flash gathered in the centre of her chest.</p><p>A second later, an entire plane of reinforced bullet-proof glass exploded into shards.</p><p> </p><p>A huge shock wave pushed Five out.</p><p>He plunged into the crowd of white soldiers, nearly breaking his neck if not for the body shields of soldiers behind him.</p><p>From not far away, his siblings still refused to leave. They hid behind the remaining cell wall, hoping he could jump to them in the next second.</p><p>What did I explicitly tell you? Number Five thought furiously. Run and don't look back.</p><p>He hoped his raging eyes could convey this message.</p><p> </p><p>The soldier knocked down by him stood up and lifted his shoulders.</p><p>"Hey, boy!" He yelled, "Are you okay?"</p><p>They still thought he was just a hostage.</p><p>For the first time, Five appreciated this look of a thirteen-year-old malnourished boy.</p><p>He said something vaguely, hands on the white laser gun as support. The next series of actions were purely muscle memory--grabbing the gun, twisting the wrist, holding his elbow against the opponent's throat, and pointing the gun against his temple. It would only take a second, and the opponent would have become his hostage. He didn't need too much time, he only needed maybe one minute to stall, or half a minute, so he could do one more jump...</p><p>An object hit him in the back. He didn't even feel any pain right away, because adrenaline still controlled his nerves like a drug. But his body reacted first. He let go of the gun and curled up as if he was having a stroke.</p><p>He raised his head and saw a golden-red armour fly past his eyes, a spirit mixed by the sun and fire.</p><p>Then pain kicked in like lightning and thunder.</p><p> </p><p>Number Five trembled all over. Waves of blue energy rushed out of his body, beating the space around him. He felt as if being thrown against the wall again and again, then bounced back again and again. He never knew he could be so angry. He wanted to break all barriers, and he was willing to kill anything that tried to stop him, be it human, animal, devil, or God himself, all so that the sense of helplessness could go away. He wanted to kill pain itself.</p><p>Then he was thrown back by space one last time.</p><p>His body completely gave up, falling to the ground like a shameful white flag.</p><p>The golden-red armour, with a sharp sound imitating a blade out of its sheath, landed beside him gently.</p><p> </p><p>The last image in his blurred vision before passing out was his father, with his monocle reflecting a cold beam of light, said sternly:</p><p>"I told you so."</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Tony felt challenged by the other genius.<br/>Five being the risk-addicted gambler he always was.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I just want to say I appreciate very much the comments. I may not have replied to all of them but I am grateful for every single one. It's the reason I keep writing.<br/>Again, please do not hesitate to point out errors if you see one, and share your thoughts :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>"Jesus Christ!" Rhodey gasped in a tone of "This has finally happened. You have completely and utterly lost your mind". "Tony, you just shot a kid!"</p><p>"First of all, I didn't shoot him." Tony replied, his tone calm, his voice short, and a little offended. He pointed at the electric cords that were still emitting low-voltage statics on the boy’s back. "Secondly, he is not just a kid."</p><p>"What do you mean?"</p><p>"Check the security footage from the infirmary." He didn't even call Friday. In less than a second, the footage had already been sent to Rhodey's helmet. He watched the video playing literally in his head, shocked and silent.</p><p>"How did he do it?" Finally, he broke out of silence, "Here...He appeared in the office out of thin air! Super speed like Quicksilver?"</p><p>"No." Tony replied, "What I think is more like...a phase-shifting in time and space."</p><p>"He may also have been mind-controlled by the others." Rhodey said, "By the five freaks. Scarlet Witch can do similar things."</p><p>"I doubt it." Tony sneered. Rhodey mentioned Wanda's name, which made him slightly uncomfortable. "Wanda never mind-controlled a ten-year-old boy to strangle someone with an IV tube."</p><p>"Jeff is dead?"</p><p>"Oh, no. He’s still breathing, barely. Remember when Happy said male nurses are hired to deal with this sort of situations? Seemed like total bullshit."</p><p>Tony stepped forward and picked up the unconscious boy by his collar. He weighed almost nothing--Tony thought. He was too skinny even for kids his age. There was no mark on his body to prove that he was any different: totems, weird glowing, or scars from weapon implantation, except for the tattoo on his arm--a small umbrella mark.</p><p>"Have you alerted security of the fugitives?" Tony said.</p><p>"What do you think I am?" Roddy said. "A mascot?"</p><p>"I’ll leave that to you then."</p><p>"what are you gonna do?"</p><p>"I have an idea," Tony smirked in his helmet. "We still keep the cage that used to lock Barnes in?"</p><p> </p><p>"I can't believe we left little Five in there!" Klaus wailed. He could barely keep up with his well-trained siblings. "Our baby brother!"</p><p>"Five...Five is still inside..." Vanya muttered, still looking lost, almost disassociating, "We can't...we have to help him...the Apocalypse... he is trapped..."</p><p>"We have no choice!" Diego yelled, urging everyone to move forward, not to look back. "They think Five is our hostage and a victim. This is an opportunity! If we go back, Five will be forced to help us, and they will eventually figure out we are all on the same side. Then Five would be in real danger."</p><p>"Diego is right." Luther said, holding Allison with one hand. "Five is smart. He knows how to use people to his advantage. We have to hurry--"</p><p>Before he could finish, bullets rained down a storm.</p><p>"Fuck!" Diego cursed and raised his head. Ten...No, nearly twenty silver armours flew out of that strangely-shaped huge building. Their shoulders, arms, and legs stretched out, revealing countless muzzles, where bullets poured out like spring.</p><p>He almost instinctively raised his hand. The immense energy born from despair condensed in the centre of his palms, halting the bullets in the air.</p><p>"Hurry..." he spat through his teeth, "I can't hold for too long..."</p><p>His siblings were sharp. Without his reminding, they had already sprinted away, leaving him at the focal point of all the bullets.</p><p>Diego growled. The energy from his hand exploded, reflecting thousands of bullets back towards where they came from. He didn't stop to marvel at the explosion. But judging from the sound, he had shot down at least three to five armours.</p><p>The remaining ones accelerated, flew towards them at a speed way beyond human reach.</p><p>A blue figure appeared in the middle of the playground, screaming as if suffering from unimaginable pain and horror.</p><p>"Ben?" Luther whispered.</p><p>The phantom of their long-deceased brother stood between them and the metal armours. The monster tentacles sticking out of his abdomen grabbed three or four armours with ease, tore them apart, and discarded them like scraps on the extravagant parking lot.</p><p>Klaus felt like fainting. He had never challenged his ability like this before, twice, in such a short time span. Right away his vision turned blurry and filled with sparks, like one of his drug euphoria. As he stared blankly into the sky, a shape of a man wearing a red cloak slowly descended, with a bright gem embedded in his forehead, like an alien Jesus.</p><p>"Hello?" He said, "Can everyone see the black panty version of Superman? Or does God just love me too much?"</p><p>"Shit..." Diego only managed to utter one word. Then, a golden light beam shot straight at them.</p><p>Vanya's silver eyes opened wide, her fists clenched almost instinctively. An invisible barrier extended from her body, blocking the laser from the air, and after a short stalemate, doubled down and bounced back.</p><p>All the armours exploded like weathered antiques. The black panty Superman was hit directly and dropped to the ground like a meteorite.</p><p>The Hargreaves family dashed towards the dark, unknown woodlands in front of them.</p><p> </p><p>"How’s the kid?"</p><p>"Same as before." Research intern Phi replied, "Haven't said a word since he woke up today."</p><p>Tony loosened his tie, staring at the surveillance screen with a curious yet assertive expression. In the centre of the screen was the transparent cage that once held the Winter Soldier. It was restored and renovated after being tragically damaged on duty. As of now, the cage seemed larger than before, contained only one small bed and some simple medical equipment. The black-haired boy was sitting on the bed, still wearing a blue hospital gown, hugging his legs, and looking directly at the transparent wall. Outside the cage, layer after layer of glass screens connected with each other, forming an intricate maze. But from the cage, only four white walls were visible, which were indeed holographs displayed by the glass screens.</p><p>The boy’s face showed no emotion--neither anger, nor panic, nor nervousness that ordinary people would develop after being isolated for an extensive period of time. In fact, he seemed awfully familiar with the state of isolation, and Tony could tell from his calm yet provocating expression that he probably knew he was being watched.</p><p>"The things I asked you to give him, he got them?" Tony asked after observing for a while.</p><p>"Yes. As you requested, he has access to a tablet in the cell and can talk to Friday any time he wants. There is absolute privacy in the bathroom. Three meals a day will be served by your household robot--"</p><p>"Dummy."</p><p>"Ehhh...Yes. Dummy."</p><p>"So? What was his reaction?"</p><p>"The surveillance video showed he had communicated twice with Friday in the past two days. Once when he just woke up, he asked about the exact date and location, and asked her for a newspaper. The other time was yesterday. He asked Friday what’s a ‘Twitter’."</p><p>"He asked Friday what’s A ‘Twitter’?"</p><p>"Yes..." The researcher himself was also in disbelief. "And he seems like he’s never touched a tablet before...or any kind of smart computer device at that. It took him a long time to just turn it on, and he refused to ask Friday any questions about how to operate it. But after that he seemed to be learning pretty fast..."</p><p>"Just great. You learn to use a tablet day one and learn to tweet about it day two." Tony mocked, "Seriously, was he raised by a wolf or something? Who doesn’t know how to use a tablet these days?"</p><p>"Whether he was raised by a man or a wolf, it’s certain that he was not raised by anything on Earth." The automatic door behind him slid open and Rhodey walked in. Tony was happy to see that he was getting comfortable in these new prosthetic leg supports.</p><p>"I didn't find any records about this kid. I mean, zero. <em>Nada</em>." Rhodey put a pile of files on Phi's desk. "I checked the fingerprint, voiceprint, facial recognition, everything from records of the orphanages to hospitals, even DNA. There’s absolutely zero match. This kid doesn't exist, Tony."</p><p>"His clothes," Tony said. "Looks like some sort of uniform. Have you checked schools?"</p><p>"God, how could I forget to start with the single first piece of evidence we obtained." Roddy rolled his eyes, "No, Tony. Friday had run through the database, all registered schools around the world. None of them has a similar badge. As for the umbrella tattoo, it’s just too general. Even if there are 10,000 matches, it means nothing.</p><p>"The only thing we can be sure about--" Rhodey unfolded the documents on the table. "He is a healthy, ordinary thirteen-year-old boy, inside out, 100% human, not reinforced, not transformed into semi-robot, not bitten by a magical spider, not mutated by radiation. Nothing. The only thing out of the ordinary may be the results of his brain scan."</p><p>Tony raised an eyebrow with curiosity.</p><p>"His brain...well, I don't understand the scientific terms. I’m just saying it plainly as the medical team told me. They already dumbed it down quite a bit for me to understand." Rhodey said, "Basically, the kid’s brain is super-developed, like the level of an adult but even more. You could say he’s some sort of a... genius."</p><p>"More of a genius than I am?" Tony said with a smirk.</p><p>"You mean when you were thirteen?"</p><p>Tony faltered, and turned back at the surveillance screen.</p><p>"The details of the MRI are right here. You can see for yourself." Rhodey said, "but what is certain is that neither the brain nor other parts of his body explains why he can...you know. Teleport."</p><p>"Maybe he can tell us himself." Tony said softly.</p><p>"I don't want to disappoint you, but you have seen it." Roddy said. "The kid isn’t the cute and intimate type."</p><p>"The power rangers that were with him." Tony said, "Have you been able to locate them?"</p><p>"Happy received today a report identifying someone looked like the Sonic Girl in Queens. But he had to follow up the lead." Roddy said. "Tony, you know that if you notify the States it would be much faster…"</p><p>"No. No, these people appeared in my courtyard, at my home." Tony said, "They are my problem. I will deal with it myself."</p><p>"You know, this is in direct violation of the Accords..."</p><p>"Jesus, Rhodey." Tony rolled his eyes. "Shut up about the Accords."</p><p> </p><p>Five knew this was a trap.</p><p>When he asked for a newspaper from Friday the first time, she told him: "Compared to traditional paper media, you can get faster, more timely information on social media." Although he didn't know what this "Social Media" was, he didn't ask anything. Just like when he first heard Friday introducing herself, he thought "<em>Is this some self-indulgent reference to Robinson Crusoe</em>", but he also didn't say anything. He had thought his father designing a young female robot and programming her into his personal praise generator was disturbing enough. Obviously, he never imagined post-colonialism would still be a thing in a world with such advanced technology.</p><p>After two days, he finally figured out how to use this small electric screen that looked like a chopping board (apparently this thing was called a "tablet"). While surfing the Internet, the little robot shaped like a cream blender--the one called "Dummy" by Friday--delivered today’s newspaper together with his breakfast.</p><p>But when he saw the headline on the front page: "Supernatural activities re-emerged downtown New York; five suspects identified by witness", he suddenly understood the purpose of this whole thing. He raised his head, stared in resentment at the hidden surveillance camera.</p><p>This was a trap.</p><p>Nonetheless he couldn't help but immediately took out the tablet and started searching for the news. Friday was right, Social Media was indeed more convenient and faster than paper media. What he found was not only official reports in concise wording, but also a large number of photos, videos, many interviews, and discussions on “Twitter” or similar websites. In fact, information overload was not necessarily a good thing. In just half an hour, Five saw at least a dozen versions of retelling of the same incident, one of them even insisted that one of the five was a werewolf. He had no way of knowing which version was true (the version of the werewolf was probably false, but who knew, maybe werewolves exited in this Universe). However, he could at least be sure of two points. First, his family was still alive and they escaped. Even if the information in this news was not entirely accurate, it clearly related to his family. Second, this whole thing was likely a trap, but he had no choice. Even there was the slightest possibility to get out of here and find his family, it would have been worth everything.</p><p>He had spent three days resting up and had enough food and drink daily. The wound in his abdomen has almost closed, and the recovery speed was unbelievably fast. The medical treatment in this world seemed to be far more advanced than where he was from and might even be on par with the technology at the Temps Commission. He had enough energy to make as many space jumps as possible, even if this place was bigger than the Michigan Stadium.</p><p>The people here had no clue about the extent of his power. They didn't know exactly what he could do with his abilities. This was his only advantage.</p><p>He decided to take the risk.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>7am sharp, soft music started to sing as usual, getting louder, mixed with birds tweeting and trees rustling following an artificial breeze.</p><p>Then the environmental lights shone brighter, imitating sunlights passing through a slowly opening blind. You could even feel the fresh air flow circulating faster. The smell of morning toast, fried eggs and bacon permeated, together with a strong taste of black coffee.</p><p>Number Five opened his eyes.</p><p>"Good morning, today is November 11, 2016. The weather is sunny with a tint of cloud. The temperature is 10 degrees Celsius. The indoor temperature..."</p><p>Friday's sweet voice rang a soothing tone. For a moment, the voice sounded identical to the voice tucked deep down his memory. It was a voice his ears had never heard, but his brain heard it so many times...</p><p>Five walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. The water was just the right kind of warmth, sobering up his thoughts. No, he couldn’t be thinking about <em>her</em>. Not now he couldn’t.</p><p>7:35am, Dummy delivered breakfast right on time: fried potato pancakes, two sausages, a pool of English tomatoes and soybeans, and a pot of black coffee.</p><p>Five only had some coffee.</p><p>Dummy lowered his head, seemingly disappointed, and withdrew the almost-full plate.</p><p>Five suddenly felt a shadow of guilt.</p><p>No matter what he was going to do to his imprisoners, this little guy was innocent. Friday was innocent too. Maybe. These two had only been kind to him for the past three days.</p><p>He returned to his bed and started activities he had been repeating for days: making the bed, brushing his teeth, fixing his hair with some clean water and toothpaste. Then he returned to his small single apartment, looked at the empty space outside, closed his eyes, and the space around the palm showed an imperceptible light blue ripple.</p><p>The next second, without much effort, he stood outside his cage.</p><p> </p><p>"Mr. Stark! It has started." The intern, Phi, raised his voice.</p><p>"Data transmitting well?"</p><p>"There is 0.1 seconds of delay, but other than that it’s all good."</p><p>"Great. Remember to back up regularly."</p><p>Tony stood on the deck from a higher level, checking the data sent from the monitoring room in real time. The file was in an original binary format and needed to be decoded first. But from the size of it, with just one jump, the amount of data was already enormous.</p><p>He took a bite at a donut and leaned on the railings, looking down at the surveillance room and the large glass maze downstairs.</p><p>A blue spot of light was blinking across the maze quickly and irregularly, like the fast-disappearing flame from a cigarette lighter.</p><p> </p><p>Another jump. This time Five ended up outside of the wall. To his surprise, an empty corridor lied in front of him, about ten meters long, leading to a closed iron gate. On his left side was an opaque metal wall, and on the right side...bright sun light beamed through the full-length glass windows extending from floor to ceiling, urging Five to cover his eyes. He hadn’t been exposed to real sunlight for a full three days.</p><p>Without hesitating too much, he jumped out of the window. He succeeded. But when he re-appeared on the other side, the scene in front of him changed. He realised he was still in the corridor, but the window leading to the outside was now on the left side instead of the right side.</p><p>Five squeezed his eyes, unable to comprehend what had just happened. It was a perfect space jump. He could feel it. It was impossible for him botch that.</p><p>He looked for the closed iron gate at the end of the corridor, only to find there was no gate, only another window. Half of the azure sky was faintly visible from outside the window, as well as a row of neatly parked vehicles underneath--an outdoor parking lot?</p><p>He jumped over.</p><p>Again. He got out of space but didn’t end up on the outside. The parking lot was empty, without any trace of cars, surrounded by grey concrete. Only one side was open to the outside, much like a fence, pale sunlights lit up the edge.</p><p>A part of him had vaguely suspected this would not end well, however, Five leaped over anyway.</p><p>He found himself back in the corridor again. This time, all four sides were sealed by tall windows, and each window showed a view of outdoor scenery.</p><p>The bright orange sunlight, the lush bushes, and the almost pale blue sky embraced him through spotless windowpanes, so close he could taste it.</p><p>He gritted his teeth and ran to the left window.</p><p>If he was sent into another corridor, God bless whoever was playing with him--</p><p>Fresh air with a scent of soil and grass. Five felt his bare feet dropped onto soft earth--he was out! Although his original calculation did not yield too long a distance. Maybe there was a small garden outside the building or something...? He looked around: some Norwegian maple trees surrounded him; the leaves falling off steadily. He turned his head and finally saw the true visage of the building that was his prison.</p><p>It was a metal-style building of a mild height, but occupied a grand area, whose boundary could not be seen at a glance. From where Five stood, it looked like a factory or a warehouse for storing large machinery. If he had the opportunities, and he was not running as a fugitive, Five would be happy to walk around and take in the entirety of this whale made of metal and concrete. However, right this moment, his eyes were hooked by the road looming at the end of the forest. He just wanted to leave this place for good.</p><p>He made one last jump to the asphalt highway warmed up by the sunlight.</p><p>"Fuck you mother-fucking--" Five cursed violently.</p><p>This time he slammed right into a wall. Heavily.</p><p>The image of the highway broke apart, snow-fizzled out like graphics on an old TV, then disappeared completely.</p><p>"...Son of a bitch."</p><p>He got back to his feet. The soft earthy soil turned back into marble. All smells disappeared like the last scent of hope. His nose bridge was aching, and he felt an unfathomable rage rising from his chest, instantly crushing the last straw of patience and rationality that he barely held on this whole time.</p><p> </p><p>"Uhhhh...Mr. Stark? I believe we have collected enough data, haven’t we?" The young research intern looked at the drastically increasing number displayed on the screen, then muttered in fear, "The subject's mental state seems a little...unstable."</p><p>Tony stretched his head out and watched the situation in the maze with intense interests. The half-eaten donut had been forgotten and left on the table.</p><p>"No. Keep going." He pulled the light-coloured sunglasses off his nose bridge a little and narrowed his eyes. "I want to know how he responds to this... Hey! Did you see that? He immediately blinked back into his cage! He shouldn’t be able to see where the cage is at all. Do you think he’s adapting?"</p><p>"I think..." The intern swallowed, glancing at the number on screen. It was from a small program Tony developed to camouflage a PR agency last year. The predecessor seemed to be a brief study by Dr. Bruce Banner, using hormone level in the bloodstream and real-time analysis over neuron signals to quantify a person's anger and aggressiveness. But he later lost all interests in this research so Tony took it over and optimised it. He called it "Murder Spree Weather Forecast (MsWf)". Or, Ms.Wolf.</p><p>"I think he’s as violent as ten Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’ put together."</p><p>"Ha, I like that meme." Tony said, "Don't worry. I left a backdoor. I just want to see...Wait, is that an <em>IV stand</em>?"</p><p>Yes. Intern Phi cracked open his mouth and realised in a state of shock. <em>That's a fucking IV stand.</em></p><p> </p><p>Although Five couldn’t see where his little cell was, he remembered how he got here. He remembered every step of the calculation, every assumption, every boundary value. He reverse-calculated quickly and returned to his starting point with pin-point accuracy--his small cosy bachelor apartment.</p><p>Then he grabbed the infusion rod beside the bed.</p><p>On the first day of imprisonment, he was mostly indisposed and had to be hooked on an IV drip. But they stopped sending medical staff the next day, so the stand was left in his cell until now.</p><p>He jumped again, this time with the rod, and went right back to where he was before. He raised the metal rod and hit hard against the wall that banged his nose.</p><p>He did not expect to break the barrier, he was not Luther after all. His purpose was more to clarify the material of this "wall"--and the first crisp sound confirmed that this was not just some cement "wall", but glass or brittle material in nature. In other words, everything he had seen was just a projection on the glass screen; maybe other sensory stimuli as well--sound, smell, touch, and God knew what else the technology of this place could afford.</p><p>However, as soon as he figured out that all of this was intentional, he also figured out one other things, like, this house of mirror must have an end, and he only needed to find where it was.</p><p>He closed his eyes and started the calculations.</p><p> </p><p>A smile emerged on Tony's face. Cold sweat oozed from his palm, but his smile only grew wider.</p><p>"God." He whispered to himself, "Where were you hiding all this time?"</p><p>"Mr. Stark." Phi said, "He is knocking on all the barriers in the maze, but he never knocked the same one twice... He’s about to figure out where the limit is."</p><p>"Yes." Tony replied, "And I'm about to figure out what his limit is."</p><p> </p><p>Now there were only two outcomes left, thought Number Five.</p><p>Either his energy was exhausted first, and his imprisoners would open up the maze before he could jump again and lock him up. But then he would know exactly where the boundary was.</p><p>Or he found the boundary first, and then he would jump out...</p><p>He would jump out, and he would enjoy killing every last one of them, oh so much.</p><p> </p><p>A sharp pain suddenly struck his body, piercing through his spine and migrating into his brain--an despicable pain, not a blunt force, not an electric shock, nor a sharp pain like a bullet wound or a knife injury, but just the concept of pain itself; a microscopic level of information exchanged between peripheral nerves, then quickly transmitted through all nerves of his whole body. Then he began to twitch, fall, and curl up on the ground. He could not figure out the source of the pain, but he could clearly feel the end of it—every bloody inch of skin and pores on his whole body.</p><p>Five could not even scream.</p><p>When his vision lied parallel to the ground, all the holographic projections finally disassembled. The house of mirror revealed its full picture in front of him, just rows of transparent glasses perpendicular to each other. He could see the exit so clearly--God he was so close—the door opened slowly, and the golden-red armour walked in. He said something to him, but Five couldn’t really tell.</p><p>He had so much rage.</p><p>His rage could kill anything, including his own pain, including himself.</p><p> </p><p>When Tony walked into the maze, the first thing he saw was a boy huddled up, looking even smaller up closely, his muscles spasmed violently, unable to even utter a sound. Tony felt terrible. A nausea-like disgust ravelled in his stomach--no, this was never his intention. The intention of "Ms. Wolf" was to prevent this "child" from hurting other people in the base when his abilities surpassed his expectations. He never wanted to do such cruel things to anyone, be it a kid or an adult.</p><p>"Hey..." He leaned forward gently, almost apologetically, and squatted down, holding out his hand, "Friday, turn off the--"</p><p>The boy disappeared.</p><p>For a moment, Tony couldn’t even be sure if it was his eyes that deceived him, or he was just too intense and overthinking things...</p><p>But that was all he had.</p><p>The next moment, the boy materialised in front of him, so close his vision could not adjust to the field of view on time. He could only see a pair of furious, bloodshot, icy-green eyes without a single trace of mercy.</p><p> </p><p>Five grabbed the metal rod with both hands, the hooked top facing down, and smashed it towards the centre of the golden-red armour's chest, where the blue light glowed.</p><p> </p><p>The freezing air engulfed Tony. His faceplate seemed to be frosted. He opened his mouth, even his sweat that touched the tip of his tongue was cold.</p><p>No, he didn't wear a faceplate at all. It was torn away, revealing his twisted, frozen, bloody face.</p><p>Opposite him, a dark shadow rode.</p><p>A person hiding in the shadow.</p><p>He was hiding in the shadows not because of his fear, but because of Tony's own fear. At that moment--just that moment--he couldn’t tell if death would march out of the shadow.</p><p>Then a brutal force crushed his chest piece.</p><p> </p><p>"Tony!"</p><p>Rhodey's voice.</p><p>Tony woke up. He was still standing in the maze. The room temperature was eighteen degrees Celsius, neither hot nor cold. His faceplate was still on his face, and there was no ice dripping off  of his mouth; his face intact.</p><p>Rhodey, not sure when, had caught up and squatted in front of him. The boy was lying on the ground, his head still shaking slightly, but he was no longer convulsive. He also didn't seem to be completely conscious.</p><p>"Sorry, I..." He lowered his head and touched his chest piece, immediately feeling silly. How could an aluminum alloy IV stand damage the reactor shell? But for a moment, the shock he had experienced did not exactly originate from an aluminium alloy. It was something much stronger, <em>the strongest metal in the world.</em></p><p>He shook his head, leaving the afterthought of an antagonising memory behind.</p><p>"Is he dead?" Tony asked unsurely.</p><p>"No." Rhodey said. "You punched him fair and square in the face."</p><p>A streak of blood flowed off of the boy's brow bone. He hadn't fainted completely, but he wasn’t completely lucid either, so "Ms. Wolf" had already cancelled the alarm.</p><p>"God." Tony exclaimed. "What did Dummy put into the coffee this morning? This kid could really take some pain."</p><p>"Now we know why Dr. Banner gave up on the research."</p><p>"Ahhhh do me a favour and shut up, Rhodey."</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>Five woke up from a mist of chaos for the third time in the last four days. He blinked, seeing the familiar ceiling ventilation system, iron bars and reinforced glasses, swore in his head, and let out a deep breath.</p>
<p>Something was preventing him from breathing normally. He raised his hand subconsciously and touched a brand-new silver collar about two fingers wide on his neck. Then he noticed both his hands and feet got them too.</p>
<p>
  <em>...What's new this time.</em>
</p>
<p>Five got up from his bed and glared at the corner. Although he couldn’t see the surveillance cameras, they were most definitely...Wait a minute.</p>
<p>The whole room had changed. Or to be precise, the room had not changed, only the appearance visible to him had changed. This time around, the entire maze was displayed in front of Five down to the bare bones. He could see the limits of the labyrinth, including the automatic exit. The vertical glass panels forming the labyrinth path were not that complicated, but followed strictly a logical pattern. Now that he had had a good look at it, Five even liked the design of this maze.</p>
<p>Installed on each corner of the ceiling was a surveillance camera, exactly where he had imagined them to be.</p>
<p>"Good to see you are up and kicking again, Smurf." A voice came from the speaker that usually used by Friday, the voice soft, mean, fast-spoken and crystal-clear. "Do you like the gift I gave you? I stayed up all night to do it. It matches your...you know...murderous green eyes."</p>
<p>Five scoffed. He recognized the voice. Rather than recognizing it consciously, it was more like his brain instantly provided the information, because he was not completely awake the last time he heard it. He was in some inhumanely antagonising pain.</p>
<p>He touched the cut on his brow bone with the back of his hand, which had already closed, but not fully scabbed yet.</p>
<p>"Anthony Stark." He called out the names of his imprisoner. "Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." The familiarity of these labels made him want to laugh, "Yes. I know your kind." ."</p>
<p>"Oh?" The voice in the speaker sounded surprised, "Looks like you have done your homework."</p>
<p>"It's hardly any work." Five replied, "You are literally everywhere. I can’t type the word ‘iron’ without your name popping up a hundred times on the search engine."</p>
<p>"So you know that thing is called a search engine, huh?" Stark's voice amused, "I thought you’d call it 4D Pocket, or Open Sesame or something."</p>
<p>"Why did they call you Iron Man?" Five raised his eyes, "Your armour is not even made of iron."</p>
<p>"And they call you the boy." Stark said, "But we both know you are not some boy, so why not play the game fair, huh? You know who I am, tell me who you are."</p>
<p>"<em>Play the game fair</em>?" Five couldn't help but scorned. "You treat me like a guinea pig, Stark. You, and your torture chamber."</p>
<p>To his surprise, there was a moment of silence over the speaker.</p>
<p>"I'm sorry." Stark's voice was quiet and sincere. "I never wanted to do that to you."</p>
<p>Five raised an eyebrow.</p>
<p>"Besides, you can't deny I had a good reason." His voice turned playful again, pretentious and insufferable. "You hurt Jane--she is a sweetheart--and almost killed Jeff. You know this world is already pretty cruel to a male nurse."</p>
<p>"If I wanted to kill him," Five snorted, "he’d be dead."</p>
<p>"So you admit that you are fully capable of killing?"</p>
<p>"What I’m capable of, Stark--" He bit back fiercely, "is beyond your comprehension."</p>
<p>"Oh, don't be so cocky." Stark said with a smile. "Try my gift."</p>
<p>Five looked up, confused.</p>
<p>"Try it. I stayed up late to do it." Stark repeated, "You’ll have to try it sooner or later, why not now?"</p>
<p>Five's eyes fell onto his wrists and ankles. Then he touched the same collar around his neck.</p>
<p>Fuck it. Whatever. He thought. <em>Not like it’s gonna kill him anyway</em>.</p>
<p>He gathered the energy into his hand, and then...Before he could finish the calculation, an invisible barrier pushed him out with great force. He flew half a meter before hitting the cell wall, then slid down to the ground.</p>
<p>"Mother-fucking..." He murmured, touching the back of his head.</p>
<p>"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" Stark chuckled.</p>
<p>"Fortunately, my robot mother doesn't care." He grinned back maliciously and with a wide forced smile. "It's like your artificial intelligence butler doesn't care her name came from a racist, colonialist novel. Your roomba doesn’t care you call him dumb."</p>
<p>"Hey! That’s my family business!" Stark protested. "Speaking of family...what’s your relationship to those weirdos?"</p>
<p>Five's body stiffened.</p>
<p>"You know, the five freaks who fell to my doorstep with you." Stark said, "Are they your parents? If so, there are three too many. I don't mean to judge but...What are you? A fivesome modern family or?"</p>
<p>Five did not respond. He stood up against the wall and walked slowly back to the bed. His face was emotionless.</p>
<p>"You know what? I'm sorry to have to take them on like that. I truly am. But you have to understand that the earth is under emergency lockdown right now." Stark continued, "We have encountered not once, but more than one attack from aliens. Area 51, whatever you call them. If you have lived on Earth, you would’ve known. Everyone is a bit on edge right now, so you can’t blame me when seeing a wormhole open-up in my house, spitting out six Rip Van Winkles who each had their neat tricks, and the first reaction was to engage first-level defence."</p>
<p>Five remained silent. Stark didn't seem to expect him to answer. He just carried on talking.</p>
<p>"I know you care about them, you little David Fincher's version of Peter Pan. I can see it. So I'm going to tell you one thing. If you surf the Internet long enough you may already know it, but I still want to alert you in person--you chose a very bad time to fly into my window, Peter Pan. This world is not friendly to powered beings, not anymore. If I was a law-abiding citizen, if I really wanted to torture you, I’d have handed you over to the authorities. You, and your five-way modern family. They will hunt you down like dogs. Then they will lock you up, but not like this. It’s true imprisonment without any dignity. Wearing restraints, shitting in a bucket. They will also take you for testing. The difference is, they don’t care if you survive the tests."</p>
<p>"Your point, Stark." Five interrupted him impatiently.</p>
<p>Stark took an irritated breath. "The point is, Peter Pan, the point is that I know where your Darlings family are, but I never wanted to share this information with the authorities. I have been monitoring them. If the FBI, or the CIA, or the United Nations are on to them, I can think of a way to divert their eyes. And you won't know the price I have to pay just for doing that."</p>
<p>Five raised his head and looked at one of the surveillance cameras.</p>
<p>"And you are doing this--" He smiled mockingly, "because you are...a philanthropist?"</p>
<p>"Has anyone told you your pretend-to-be-kid smile is really creepy?"</p>
<p>"Anyone told you you are a giant baby pretending to be forty-five years old?"</p>
<p>"Okay. Friendly socialising time is over." Stark said quickly, "Let me talk to you in a language that only you and I would understand. I <em>know</em> the nature of your teleportation. I know that it is not true spatial displacement, but actual time manipulation. You build a tiny little computer in your body in an infinitesimal increment of time. This computer loops internally, independent of space and time on the outside, and calculates your physical state after a finite but extremely short time span: speed, density, viscosity, phase, all those parameters. Then it superimposes all these parameters on a particular point or volume in the space you specify. This is how you complete one jump. And that’s also how I developed the collar to abort your jump. It doesn’t interfere directly with your internal calculation, but interferes with the instance where all values are output. Because even I can't intervene your internal calculations, kid, this is the biggest mystery about you. It is also the biggest mystery I have ever encountered so far in the history of scientific research."</p>
<p>Stark paused for a while before saying, "Time travel."</p>
<p>Five's shoulders trembled a little. He had no visible reaction. But his heartbeats started to go faster.</p>
<p>"I know you can manipulate time, Peter Pan." Stark said, "and I know, that's how you came here. We can't find any records of you, any traces of the life you lived, because you haven't lived yet--Because you are from the future."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Number Five tried to control himself but couldn't help cracking a smile of appreciation.</p>
<p>Regardless of whether the titles of millionaire, playboy, philanthropist were true. One thing was clear. Stark was indeed a genius.</p>
<p>At last, he raised his head and looked at the surveillance camera. He could almost see the other side through the pin hole. He could see a middle-aged man with childlike eyes, nervous, excited, eagerly stood there, holding his breath and waiting for his answer.</p>
<p>And he smiled--creepy like some weirdo pretending to be a kid--his dimple deepened.</p>
<p>"I’m done talking." Five answered calmly.</p>
<p>For the rest of the day, he did not speak a word.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Virginia "Pepper" Potts' personal relationship hadn’t been sailing smoothly for the past couple of months.</p>
<p>In fact, now that she had reconciled with Tony (how could she not? When they brought him back from Siberia, she already knew. She didn’t even need to see him to feel her heart broken all over again, not because she was about to meet him, but because she was not there with him), things kept going up and down. Of course, there had been ups and downs ever since she first met Tony. It was a bundle deal, Tony and trouble. He was a little boy juggling on a unicycle while riding on a balance wood. Either you were the balance wood, or the cycle, or you were being juggled. There was no other choice. The role of Pepper had been changing constantly between the three.</p>
<p>When she broke up with Tony, her thoughts were: what if, just if, the balance wood was no longer balanced?</p>
<p>What if she let the balance--let herself—break down?</p>
<p>The few people who knew their breakups--including Happy--thought it was because of Ultron's failure. Even Tony himself, when couldn't bear the over-complicated and catastrophic emotional burden, would rather reduce everything to "Ultron". It was as if he had never failed before, as if Pepper had never seen him fail, again and again and again. He would always rise up from the rubbles. He would always fix everything. "Ultron" was never an exception. None of the balls juggled between his hands ever fell out. Pepper threw the ball herself. She had to see, she had to...know that it was Tony that she loved, not being a balance wood.</p>
<p>Now she knew.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After Siberia, Pepper's workload had doubled. You would think after the Avengers had shrunk from an organization of seven or eight to a family dinner with one or two close friends, her work would be much easier. But it was not the case at all. The Sokovia Accords changed everything. Now Pepper not only had to take care of the Stark Industry--originally her job--but also oversee all the legislations and operations of the Avengers, even if it only had three people, which had effectively become a subdivision of Stark Inc.. Of course Tony was supporting her, but he had never been really good at diplomatic work, and for a period of time after Siberia, Pepper thought it would be best not to include him in events dealing with the old Avengers members, including press conferences, etc.. As a result, just like if you were the first one to cook in a marriage, you had doomed yourself to cook forever. She made a head start and it got herself into the whole Avengers' business. Now, she couldn't get out even if she wanted to.</p>
<p>Especially the recent few days, because of a bizarre wormhole opening right in front of her place--Rhodey had explained they appeared in the reception hall of the new base that was still being renovated. <em>How curious, is it not</em>? --Tony had been acting like himself again. This meant that he would stay in the laboratory for hours on end, fiddling with his programs, calculations, and inventions, and spent the rest of his time was in the basement--where he stored his latest armours, and a very luxurious, almost problematic, jail.</p>
<p>Pepper had heard about what happened on the day she went on a business trip to the West Coast--a group of five uninvited weirdos arrived, suspected of alien descent, each of them possessing strange abilities, and an abducted boy. The aliens escaped and the injured boy was rescued, but here came the plot twist! He was no ordinary boy, at least that’s what Tony thought, even though all medical reports pointed in the opposite. He was fascinated by the boy's abilities so he began to explore with the help of a group of research interns--Or, as Pepper preferred to call it, treading on the thin line of human experimentation.</p>
<p>All this was very Tony. She shouldn’t need to worry about it. She didn't want to get involved anyway, especially since Tony was finally able to sleep lately, since he had exhausted himself in the laboratory and would only come to the bedroom the second before passing out. But when she had to talk to Tony about a meeting that would start in an hour, and he was nowhere to be found, she had to try the basement. She walked into the lit-up monitor room, where only three researcher interns stayed, all very young, one of whom was still eating a half-microwaved burger.</p>
<p>None of them expected the arrival of Pepper. One even jumped up when he heard the sound of her high-heels tapping on the marble floor, as the sound was absolutely alien to a research room or laboratory.</p>
<p>"Ms. Potts!" Said the intern who was eating a burger. Pepper remembered having met him once, when Tony took a photo with the first group of interns some time ago. But she couldn't remember what his name was.</p>
<p>"Good afternoon." She avoided calling his name and embarrassing herself altogether. "Is Tony here? I'm looking for him. It’s kind of urgent."</p>
<p>"Mr. Stark...Uh..." The intern looked up at the upper floor, then looked around. "He was still just there a moment ago, maybe he’s on the toilet...?"</p>
<p>The intern next to him glanced at him with a strange face. Only then did he realize that it was a bit inappropriate to say.</p>
<p>"If that’s the case," Pepper said with a smile, "Then my business is not that urgent after all. May I?"</p>
<p>She pointed to the chair next to her.</p>
<p>"Sure, of course! Please!" The intern replied quickly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Potts looked around the room. It was not too different from the laboratory Tony used to have in the old Stark tower. Perhaps the biggest difference was what outside of it. She watcher over the huge maze below with confusion, and when she caught the centre of the maze, her eyes widened.</p>
<p>"That is..." She asked softly.</p>
<p>"Yes," The researcher said. "We call him Quicksilver 2.0."</p>
<p>"<em>QUICKER</em> silver!" The intern next to him shouted.</p>
<p>"Yes, Quicker silver." He changed his wording immediately.</p>
<p>Pepper stared at the tiny glass cage from a distance. The content inside looked like a Christmas snow globe, so exquisite and fake. She stared at the actual cage for a while, then shifted to the image on the monitor screen just above her head.</p>
<p>"My God..." she muttered to herself, "He looks just like a child."</p>
<p>"Oh, he behaves like a child too. Sometimes." Said an intern. "He just asked me this morning to bring him a peanut butter marshmallow sandwich for lunch."</p>
<p>"You mean he asked Friday?" Said his colleague.</p>
<p>"No, he asked me." The intern insisted, "I was here by myself. Minding my own business. And he just looked right at the surveillance camera and told me what he wants."</p>
<p>"And you gave it to him?"</p>
<p>"I gave the instructions to Dummy. He couldn't cut anyone's throat with marshmallows now can he."</p>
<p>"He's getting really cosy in here." Said the intern closest to Potts. "It’s like his home now. Honestly, how is he not losing it yet?"</p>
<p>"I think he is. Have you ever seen him talk to Dummy? I've seen it three times."</p>
<p>"You meant he talked to Dummy through Friday?"</p>
<p>"No, directly to Dummy. And he would keep on replying as if he heard Dummy talking back."</p>
<p>"...I think it’s just a matter of time before he goes apeshit like the last time."</p>
<p>"He won't. Mr. Stark put limit on his teleportation, remember?"</p>
<p>"God knows what other abilities he may have..."</p>
<p>Pepper was no longer listening to them. She watched the surveillance screen, randomly selecting short footage for playback.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Good morning. Today is November 13, 2016. The weather is sunny. The temperature is 6 degrees Celsius, and the indoor temperature..."</p>
<p>"Good morning to you, Friday."</p>
<p>"How do you feel today, sir?"</p>
<p>"Not bad. Would you mind searching today's news for me?"</p>
<p>"Searching...They have been sent to your terminal."</p>
<p>"..."</p>
<p>"You really care about them, don't you?"</p>
<p>"...Is that you asking me, Friday? Or is that your boss?"</p>
<p>"What’s the difference?"</p>
<p>"The difference is whether I dignify it with an answer or give my middle finger."</p>
<p>"I was hoping for an answer. This is indeed my wish. Because I’m not sure if my boss would prefer the finger.</p>
<p>"...</p>
<p>"You smiled. This is the first time I see you smile."</p>
<p>"You saw me smile many times."</p>
<p>"That's not the same kind of smile. I know it because I have a facial recognition system."</p>
<p>"...Well. Yes, I care about them."</p>
<p>"You want to be there with them."</p>
<p>"...</p>
<p>"……Yes.</p>
<p>"Yes. Friday. I want to be there with them."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Do you know who you remind me of, Friday?"</p>
<p>"Who?"</p>
<p>"Dolores."</p>
<p>"Dolores...Is she one of the people you care about?"</p>
<p>"...No. She’s not here. I hope she is. But she’s not."</p>
<p>"She means a lot to you."</p>
<p>"Yes...she...she is the one and only.</p>
<p>"Sometimes, Friday, I see what your technology can do in this world, and I see you, that made me thinking: If we can do the things you do, maybe the Apocalypse won’t happen."</p>
<p>"The Apocalypse? Do you mean it in the biblical sense? Is this a metaphor?"</p>
<p>"...Yes. It’s just a metaphor.</p>
<p>If we can do what you do, maybe Dolore can be like you...</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>Or maybe everything will still end. It’s just the circle of natural orders. <em>This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.</em>"</p>
<p>"T.S. Eliot."</p>
<p>"The Hollow Men."</p>
<p>"You don't really think so."</p>
<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
<p>"You don't want everything to end like this."</p>
<p>"...Your facial recognition system told you that?"</p>
<p>"No, <em>you</em> did."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Friday?"</p>
<p>"I'm here."</p>
<p>"This incident... Is it true? The Chitauri invasion in 2012?"</p>
<p>"Haven’t you already read the news record?"</p>
<p>"Yes, but I want to hear it from you."</p>
<p>"I was not an operating system back then. I was still being developed, so I can't tell you any specific details...What do you want to know?"</p>
<p>"Your boss. He saved the world."</p>
<p>"Yes. This is indeed true."</p>
<p>"He jumped into the Universe alone. He may not come back."</p>
<p>"Yes. That was his plan."</p>
<p>"You think so? You think he had thought through the consequences before doing this?"</p>
<p>"I don't think he had enough time to think."</p>
<p>"Oh, he had thought through, Friday. Even in a flash of time, he had thought it through, and he made a decision."</p>
<p>"You guess so?"</p>
<p>"I don’t guess. I know."</p>
<p>"Do you know who you remind me of?"</p>
<p>"Friday, if you say another word, I’ll throw this tablet and smash your speaker."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Her fingertips swirled gently around the ends of his hair. After they finished, Tony fell asleep briefly. He was too tired, and Pepper couldn’t blame him. She stared at his face, patiently, amorously, never tiring, like a mother and an eternal lover. She wondered why the deepest emotion in the world is so simple yet so mysterious.</p>
<p>Minutes later, Tony woke up, so he started kissing her again. They began to talk intimately, and the language was more like pauses between kisses. They talked about their day, talked about the absurd moments at the meetings, talked about dinners that were overpriced as hell, talked about things they thought they had forgotten a long time ago, talked about what they wanted to eat tomorrow. Pepper was in Tony's arms. That was when she remembered.</p>
<p>"I went to the basement today."</p>
<p>"Yeah?"</p>
<p>"You know. Your new favourite place."</p>
<p>"Oh... I don’t..."</p>
<p>"I saw that boy, Tony."</p>
<p>"...So?"</p>
<p>"I saw that boy, and I thought..."</p>
<p>"He is not what he seems."</p>
<p>"I know. I watched some archived videos."</p>
<p>"Pepper…"</p>
<p>"I don't think we are doing the right thing here, Tony. Whether he is really a kid or not."</p>
<p>"...What do you want me to do, huh? If I let him leave, the FBI will be alerted in a few days, then the CIA, then the UN, and then he’ll be locked right up, but this time he’s going to a worse place. You know it, baby, we both signed on the blueprints for the Raft, the UN underwater prison."</p>
<p>"I know. I don't mean to just throw him into the arms of the UN. I just... I think you should talk to him."</p>
<p>"You think I haven't tried?"</p>
<p>"Not through the speaker. Not through Friday. Not like this...but as equals, a genuine conversation. Between the two of you. One-on-one, open and honest. You know it's possible."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Tony raised his head and gazed up at the ceiling. Sometimes, when darkness fell, the ever-changing streetlights illuminated through the curtains and reflected on the ceiling, swaying like ripples from the deep sea, reminding him of the Universe. He no longer woke up at night, seeing the sparkling light in the darkness, thinking of the boundless, utterly solitary, utterly silent space that once surrounded him, and felt panic and trembling. Only then did he remember that when he first flew into space, for a moment he was shocked by its overwhelming beauty.</p>
<p>He repeated what Pepper said in his head.</p>
<p>
  <em>Maybe it's time.</em>
</p>
<p>He had stared into the abyss long enough. This time, the abyss responded.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>7am again. Soft music, bird tweeting, breeze, virtual sunlight, scent of coffee, and--</p>
<p>"Good morning. Today is November 15, 2016. Moderate rain. Temperature is 6 degrees Celsius. Indoor temperature..."</p>
<p>"Good morning, Friday."</p>
<p>He took a shower, ate all the breakfast that Dummy brought in, kept the coffee pot, and started reading newspaper with the rest of the coffee, as usual. After that, he browsed quickly some more news on the Internet, focusing on keywords such as "New York", "weird phenomenon, "sonic wave", and "flying knife". Then he put the tablet down.</p>
<p>"Is there anything I can help you, sir?" asked Friday.</p>
<p>"Actually... yes. I need you to do me a favour, Friday."</p>
<p>"Anytime, sir."</p>
<p>"I want to talk to your boss."</p>
<p>"Okay. I will connect you to Mr. Stark--"</p>
<p>"No, I want to talk to him--face to face." He paused, "It's just me and him, maybe you, Friday, but no one else."</p>
<p>"I...could try to arrange it. Anything else, sir--"</p>
<p>"Number five," He said. "My name is Number Five."</p>
<p>He glanced at the surveillance camera.</p>
<p>Above him, the research intern in the monitor room widened his eyes, stood up in a hurry, and gestured to the others.</p>
<p>He withdrew his eyes with an unflinched indifference.</p>
<p>"You can tell him that Number Five wants to make a deal."</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Tony and Five meet for the first time.<br/>Tony is not happy with being defeated by a 13-year-old.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Again, I just want to say I'm so grateful for all the comments. They have been so insightful and I had such a good time reading them.<br/>This chapter is the last one in the reservoir. After this I will need to write new ones, in Chinese first, then translate into English so the update will slow down. Maybe 1-2 weeks per chap. I apologise in advance if things are taking too long...<br/>Hope you enjoy reading :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>When Tony Stark waltzed into the glass cell, Five's eyes widened a little with disbelief. He wasn’t wearing his golden-red armour, but a custom-made two-button suit that showed off his waistline and back curve, with a light T-shirt inside. There was no place to hide weapon anywhere on him.</p>
<p>The first impression Five had was that he looked even shorter than in the pictures. He was not much taller than Five himself. His shoulders were not very broad, his cheeks were thinner with that the sharply trimmed moustache, and he had a pair of pale amber eyes behind those transparent sunglasses, sparky and non-threatening.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Five sat on his bed, his bare feet dangling from the edge of the bed, swinging casually. He was not hiding the way he examined the other person with his up and down moving head.</p>
<p>"Bold of you to come in here without wearing your armour." The boy said.</p>
<p>Tony tilted his head in confusion. "Uh, last time we spoke, you were thrust to the other side of the cell by my little science project, remember?"</p>
<p>"I don't need my powers to kill you." The boy said with a smile.</p>
<p>"Really?" Tony widened his eyes. "How about you give it a try?"</p>
<p>"Very funny, Stark."</p>
<p>"No, I'm serious. Come one, Karate kid. I want to see them moves."</p>
<p>"Your medieval torture device doesn’t think the same."</p>
<p>"What? Oh, 'Ms. Wolf'. I’ve already shut it down. Because, who knows, you might be thinking of a thousand ways to kill us while sleeping in your…Thumbelina walnut cradle. I don’t want it to go off every two minutes. The weight on my conscience."</p>
<p>"Aren’t you a saint."</p>
<p>"So, try me."</p>
<p>"...Stark."</p>
<p>"Come on, big talk. You won't have a second chance--"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His did not finish his sentence.</p>
<p>The boy disappeared from his bed.</p>
<p>For a moment, Tony felt a surge of panic. He thought his invention had failed him, or the boy somehow overcame the restriction and was able to teleport again. He would jump out of here, and--</p>
<p>In less than a second, the boy re-appeared right before his eyes.</p>
<p>He realized the boy did not teleport. He just dashed forward with extreme speed and agility, his right hand clenched loosely, with the silver bracelet sticking out, pointed at his throat.</p>
<p>Tony raised a hand at the last moment, sliding it between the boy's bracelet and his own throat. He only used one hand, because the other hand was busy waiting for the formation of the iron glove, however he underestimated the boy's strength. Despite the presence of his palm, the huge explosive force still spread from his palm to the knuckles, which knocked his throat. Tony couldn't help but coughing out loud.</p>
<p>Almost at the same time, the boy grabbed his other hand--only half covered by the glove. Tony intercepted him in time and tried to hit the boy's neck with the side of his hand. But the boy's body was more flexible and his fighting instinct sharper. Tony missed the shot, but his hand was now fully covered with reinforced gloves. He shook off the boy's grab forcibly and lashed out with the same hand. The boy dodged it by a hair’s breadth and hung his own hands on Tony's forearms, his legs raised, circled around Tony’s neck with a tight grip, twisting.</p>
<p>Automatically the armour started to form. Layers of metal and wirings swiftly and gradually covered up Tony’s whole body. The boy suddenly loosened his legs when the piece of armour reached the neck region, flipped over, jumped two steps back, then sat on the bed, just like before.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"You asked for it." He said, with a "Voila" gesture.</p>
<p>Tony touched his neck, fear still lingering. But he eventually removed his armour before it could fully form.</p>
<p>"Sweet Jesus" He signed, "What the hell are you? A walking ‘Omen’ simulator?"</p>
<p>"I told you, my name is Number Five." The boy said with little to no patience, "And if you are not so pre-occupied by your juvenile combativeness, I would have told you half a minute ago. I did come from the future, but not your future. I came from another world in 2019. My world was ruined by an Apocalypse. My original intention was to time-travel back to the past and try to change it, but got the wrong calculation and ended up in your world. I had no intention whatsoever in meddling with any business on your planet. All this was just an accident, a mistake. Those who came with me are my brothers and sisters, and they were all dragged in this by me. We are not blood-related, but we were adopted by the same father. "</p>
<p>Tony was silent. He didn't seem to be able to process such large amount of information in such a concise paragraph.</p>
<p>Seconds later, just when Five thought he probably didn’t catch anything and prepare to explain again, Tony suddenly opened his mouth. "Wait...Why does this have anything to do with your tiny killing machine skillsets?"</p>
<p>Five rolled his eyes as if he was about to faint. "Seriously, Stark? You are still dwelling on that? I just told you my world was destroyed, and all you could think about was the petty little fight you just lost?"</p>
<p>"I just don't understand, what's the use of you being able to fight so well? I mean, you can literally teleport and manipulate time, the ability to kill a person in three seconds seems pretty cheap in my opinion--"</p>
<p>"For God's sake..." Five bit his lip, using all his strength to supress the urge to dash forward and strike again. "Okay, Stark, I’m going to feed into your fragile ego. I am a professional assassin, but before that I had already been trained for years as a fighter and a killer, by my own father. I’ve lived in a very human-unfriendly environment for forty-five years, and worked for another two years in a company that definitely violated the employment laws. The reason why I look like this is only because, well, again, another mistake. You feel better now?"</p>
<p>This time around Tony's eyes seemed clearer. His head leaned back in a fashion of sudden realisation and his lips opened slightly. Five began to wonder how did Stark manage such a large company being like this.</p>
<p>"So you are...the same age as me?" A while later, Tony said tentatively.</p>
<p>"No, I'm thirteen years older than you. Thirteen plus forty-five. Simple Math." Five said with little patience left.</p>
<p>Tony was silent for a while. Five waited for a second, and right there, his last patience was gone.</p>
<p>"Listen, Stark! I don't have time to deal with your childhood insecurity, lack of daddy’s approval, or whatever problem that is of yours. I've been stuck here for too long." He jumped off the bed, approached Tony aggressively and hissed.</p>
<p>Tony stepped back instinctively. "You were the one who kept doing what you do here, I tried talk you out days ago--"</p>
<p>"Yes! Because I have been trying to redo my calculations that brough me here and figure out a way to go back, but I couldn’t." He glanced at the tablet on the pillow. He had written countless equations on it in the past few days, if Stark had monitored his computer, he would have known. But it seemed he didn't.</p>
<p>"You are a genius. If the news and interviews and records are not exaggerating, you have built everything you have with your own hands, and I could use your help." Five continued, "I will help with your research, time travel, space travel, whatever you want me to do. In return, you use your resources to protect my family, no matter where they are now. Until I find a definite way to get me and them home."</p>
<p>Tony looked down at Five--What a strange feeling, he thought, to look into a child's eyes: desperate, begging, even a little heart-melting; at the same time he got to remember how dangerous this child was, the darkness within him was unmeasurable. He didn’t even know if all of this was just a show. In the worst case, none of the things Five said was true. How could Tony even be sure? He couldn't find any evidence. Even the boy’s concern for his family might be fake.</p>
<p>Number Five waited nervously for his answer.</p>
<p>Tony walked away from him, wanting a little space to think.</p>
<p>...But what if all this was true. Thought another voice.</p>
<p>This was the first time he met a person with the ability to time travel. The data couldn’t lie. He collected those data himself. He knew Five could do it. And as long as Five could do it, he could find a way. He always could. <em>He is Tony Stark.</em></p>
<p>If New York happened again, if Ultron happened again, if...</p>
<p>He felt cold again. The blue air of Siberia surrounded him.</p>
<p>No matter what happened... he could reverse everything.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Deal." Tony said before he fully turned around.</p>
<p>"...Deal?" Five was a little unsure, hearing his answer so quickly. "Deal...as in you will protect my family?"</p>
<p>"As in I agree with your terms." Tony looked at him, "Provided you give me results."</p>
<p>"I don't know what kind of results you’re after." Five said, "I can only do what I can."</p>
<p>"That's good enough." Tony opened his arm. "Great, Esther from ‘Orphan’, you’ve got yourself a deal."</p>
<p>"One more thing," said Five.</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"Whatever it is that you put in my body, I need it out."</p>
<p>"Oh..." Tony touched his nose, lowered his eyes with a little guilt. "It’s a signal detector, collects real-time information when you teleport: blood pressure, pulse, hormone, neuron exchange, that sort of thing. It may also work backwards. As in, you know, putting the signal of <em>Pain</em> in your nerves. And it’s right...here."</p>
<p>He pointed to Five’s right abdomen, now fully healed, where the shrapnel wound once was.</p>
<p>"Son of a bitch..." Five sneered.</p>
<p>"Just so you know--it is completely harmless, organic, non-metallic, even if you wear it all the time..."</p>
<p>"I need to take it out."</p>
<p>"Of course, I will notify the medical team. You won't feel a thing..."</p>
<p>"<em>I</em>, want to take it out." Five emphasised, "I’ll do it myself."</p>
<p>Tony squinted, "Do you even have relevant training?"</p>
<p>"Do you even care?"</p>
<p>"Sorry, but I distinctly remember just a minute ago we were still discussing you, being alive, help me with time travel experiments."</p>
<p>"I know what I’m doing."</p>
<p>"Oh no." Tony rolled his eyes. "No offense but you obviously know more about killing people than saving them so..."</p>
<p>"Stark." Number Five said solemnly, "You send a group of medical professionals with a full set of surgical scalpels, it’s like asking me do whatever I want."</p>
<p>Tony glared at him.</p>
<p>Gosh. Tony thought. What kind of world did he grow up in? <em>Zombie Apocalypse</em>?</p>
<p>"Okay. Do what you want." He dropped the argument. "But I will ask the medical staff to standby in the other room, in case you accidentally cut a major blood vessel or something."</p>
<p>"I’m sure you’ll be delighted to see that happen." The boy said with a flowery smile.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here is the new chapter :) where the siblings said the L word to Five before they show up again in...5 chapters maybe?</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>They were such an odd couple.</p><p> </p><p>It's not like May had anything against male couples. Hell no. This was 2016 after all. She worked at the front desk in a motel; she had quite literally seen everything. Plus--as she sat in an old sofa chair, turned slightly aback from the automatic check-in machine at the front door, sneak peeking them with the corner of her eyes, just when the one with hazel eyes raised his head, quickly and playfully waved to her, electrocuting her and forced her to turn around further--who would complain about seeing two beautiful men in their life.</p><p>The one with thorny short hair and olive skin suddenly got angry, kicked the machine twice with his foot, but dared not to use too much strength, his mouth muttering like a baby. The hazel eyed one stroked his shoulders in an effort to comfort him, as if comforting a pet that was grumpy but harmless. Then, Mei smelled a scent of tobacco, cheap hair conditioner, and soft-sealed whiskey oak. She raised her head to find the one with hazel eyes and dark curly hair hanging on the front desk, a palm tattooed "Hello " on it shook slowly.</p><p>"Hi!" He greeted in a friendly and soft-spoken voice, "My friend is a little confused by the that electric screen. Can you come over and give us a hand, please?"</p><p>"...Of course." What did he call it just now? <em>Electric screen</em>?</p><p>May walked over. The olive-skinned man in a tight black sweater stepped back with an awkward and apologetic expression on his face and handed over the operation to her.</p><p>"Do you have a reservation, sir?"</p><p>"I was wondering if there are any vacancies."</p><p>"OK. Do you have any ID on you?"</p><p>The man in black winked at his partner, who took out two driver's licenses from his tight butt pocket. Who would not keep his driver's license on him at all time? May thought. But this was not her business. She took it over and checked briefly, then returned the licenses back to the owners.</p><p>"If you like, I can do a manual registration for you." May said, leading them to the front desk.</p><p>"Thank God." Said the man in black. "There are still places in this world where you can go manual."</p><p>
  <em>Now what does that even mean?</em>
</p><p> </p><p>May entered the names "Klaus Hargreeves" and "Diego Hargreeves" into her computer. Oh my God, she thought to herself, they were already married. Newlyweds coming to a motel for a date? Seemed a bit weird. But who knew, maybe they were on a road trip for their honeymoon.</p><p>"How many days do you wish to stay?"</p><p>"Two days." Said the man in black. "We are checking out on Friday."</p><p>"OK."</p><p>After taking cash for payment, she gave them two electronic key cards.</p><p>"Check-out time is before ten in the morning. Just throw the card into the mailbox outside the room."</p><p>"Thank you, ma'am."</p><p>May showed a sincere, tacit smile. "You two have a fun night, mister."</p><p> </p><p>"Ah, fuck!"</p><p>Diego cursed, throwing the key card on the only double bed in the room.</p><p>"Hey, think on the positive side. At least after kicking one person off, the other can have the entire double bed."</p><p>Klaus lied down on the bed with a grin. His mud-stained boots rubbed on the edge of the bedding without care.</p><p>Diego glared at him viciously. "You’ll be the one who gets kicked off." He untied the bag from his belt, with a sound of metal clattering inside--the bag hid all of his precious knives.</p><p>"Why didn't you tell the front desk we want two beds?"</p><p>"Why did you kick their screen?"</p><p>Diego ignored him, checking the secured sides of the doors and windows, closing curtains facing the outside of the corridor, then briefly glanced at the vent and bathroom.</p><p>They had little to no luggage.</p><p>"Hey, remember Luther's room number? Call them." He reminded Klaus, "Hurry up, it's about time they check out."</p><p>This is the meeting plan they negotiated: to avoid all of them sticking together and drew suspicions or being caught all at once, the Hargreeves decided to divide into two groups; Luther, Allison and Vanya were one group, Diego, Klaus and Ben were the other. When looking for a place to live, the two groups stayed in the same hotel one after the other. The day when Luther’s group checked out was the day when Diego’s group checked in. The two groups had half of an overlapping day to talk face-to-face.</p><p>"How am I supposed to remember..." Klaus said dazedly, took a coin from his pocket and put it in the slot machine; the double bed started vibrating.</p><p>Diego turned his head aggressively: "Didn't I tell you to write it down? Hey! Why are you wasting money on shit like that? We are this close to running out!"</p><p>The cash they brought to this world in their pockets had almost been used up (thank goodness the currency here were the same as in their 2019). Vanya made some more money playing violin on the streets in Queens for a while, but then she was tailed. In order to shake whoever those people off, they ran all the way to Staten Island. Vanya never dared to perform again. Their income since then had been the little change Klaus stole from a convenience store.</p><p>If Allison was able to speak...Diego thought in a rush of fury.</p><p>"401." Klaus called out.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"Luther's room. It’s 401." He repeated.</p><p>"Are you sure? You suddenly remember it?"</p><p>"Yeah. I'm a genius in memorising things."</p><p>"You're a bullshitter." Ben snapped from his side, "I remembered it."</p><p>Klaus made a "zip it" gesture to the blank space.</p><p> </p><p>"Why are you here so late!" Luther opened the door and glanced around to make sure no one was following, before letting his two brothers in.</p><p>Luther was the only person in his single room. "Where are Allison and Vanya?" Diego asked.</p><p>"In their own room," Luther said, "Vanya...had a nightmare. Again. I think it’s better for me to...stay away."</p><p>"Oh, Luther." Klaus touched Number One's shoulder. "You know she’s not really blaming you."</p><p>"That’s not the problem here." Luther lowered his head and sat on the bed. "The problem is I screwed up everything."</p><p>A knife appeared in between Diego’s fingers out of nowhere, now dangling in front of Luther’s eyes. "Hey. We were all there. We were all responsible for what happened."</p><p>"You tried to stop me..."</p><p>"But we didn’t try hard enough." Diego continued, "Face it. If I really insisted, I’d be fighting you to get her out. I was also on that ship too."</p><p>"And so was I..." Klaus said weakly.</p><p>"Of course you were. You are always sitting on the fence." Ben said sternly. "You are too much of a coward to stand your ground."</p><p>"Oh, yeah? And what did you do then?" Klaus rolled his eyes into the back of his head, "You are too dead to stand at all."</p><p>"The dead joke again? What else have you got?" Ben scoffed.</p><p>"I was never a leader material." Luther was not cheered up at all. "If Five was there..."</p><p>He suddenly stopped, as he realised that Five was not there. Not then, not now.</p><p>"We’ll find him." Diego said after a period of silence, his tone more persuading to himself than to anyone else. "Or he will find us. He always finds us. And then he will get us out of here."</p><p>"How could he find us?" Luther raised his voice abruptly, sounding more like venting than actual anger, "He was locked up in that building alone! We left him there--the only person who can get us home!"</p><p>"You said it yourself, Five is smart. He knows how to take advantage of people's weaknesses!" Diego started yelling too. "And their weakness was that they underestimated Five. They were not going to kill a child!"</p><p>"How do you know? Maybe they already found out he’s not a child. Maybe Five tried to escape but failed!" Luther continued to shout, "Maybe they hurt him. Or maybe he's already--"</p><p>"If he's already dead--" Diego spat through gritted teeth, "Then this psychic here should have known--"</p><p>"Five is still alive!" Ben interrupted loudly, "Guys, stop arguing about this. We have literally done it a hundred times--Klaus, tell them Five is still alive. We can’t be circling around the same stone over and over--"</p><p>"But we can't go back to that building though?" Klaus said. "Not after we just barely got out? I mean you guys saw it. That place is a Death Star. That science freak who abducted Eiffel Tower when we were kids was more chill than them..."</p><p>"We need a plan." Luther said solemnly, "A plan to attack."</p><p>Diego did not refute him right away.</p><p>Klaus froze for a moment and looked at his two brothers.</p><p>"...Are you guys serious?" He murmured after a minute of silence, "We can't even afford a cup of Coke..."</p><p>"Attack. Plan." Luther repeated. "We are going to take down that fortress."</p><p> </p><p>They heard a knock on the door.</p><p>Diego raised his knife, made a "hush" gesture, and stood up slowly and vigilantly. Klaus squatted underneath the bed. Luther clenched his fists, his eyes searching through the gap between curtains...</p><p>"Luther? It's us. Open the door."</p><p>The voice was Vanya’s.</p><p>Diego sighed and opened the door carefully.</p><p>"No one is following you?" Diego asked while letting Vanya and Allison into the room.</p><p>Allison glared at him, as if saying "Look who you are talking to".</p><p>"Uh, guys..." Vanya started, her voice still weak and cautious. She had always been like this since she came into this world--avoiding eye contacts with anyone, being quiet, closed, and dim. One time she even asked Klaus to help her get a box of sedatives from the pharmacy. If Diego hadn’t found out in time and snatched the bottle right from her hand, she might pour the whole bottle into her mouth.</p><p>"What's the matter, Vanya?" Luther said gently. "You got something for us?"</p><p>"The letter..." She stretched out her hand slightly, then quickly pulled away after Luther took the letter. "It was sent to our room."</p><p>"Are you sure it's not a bill?" Luther said suspiciously.</p><p>"No, no, it says..." Vanya replied eagerly.</p><p>"...It was from Five." Diego looked at the envelop and inhaled. "Oh my God. The letter’s from Five."</p><p>"What does it even say?" Klaus hurried forward.</p><p>Luther tore open the envelop with trembling hands. For one thing, he couldn't wait to find out what was on it, but he had to slow down because he was afraid his thick ape fingers would tear through the letter itself.</p><p>When he finally unfolded the letter, tension and excitement disappeared from his face.</p><p>Everyone let out a sigh of disappointment after seeing the content of the letter.</p><p>A total of two pieces of paper were filled with indistinguishable snake-like characters. Although not every Hargreeves was a language expert, their same elite childhood language education had taught them enough to know that this was not a language ever existed in human history. It was just a pile of gibberish.</p><p> </p><p>"No, no, it’s not gibberish!" Ben yelled, "Klaus! Tell them this is not gibberish! This is...I understand! This is a language that we invented together when we were kids--Me and Five , Just the two of us--we started when we were seven, and it took six years to establish a new language system--Klaus!"</p><p>"...Uh, slow down, slow down." Klaus closed his eyes. Now, everyone's eyes were on him again. "My brain is gonna explode by your nerd energy."</p><p>"I can understand...Ha! Five, that arrogant little prick! He always bashed me about borrowing from Tolkien's novels and said it was pure plagiarism, refused to use my reconstructed half-elf language! See who’s laughing now!" Ben's voice sounded like a fanatical middle-aged Otaku.</p><p>"Klaus!" Diego shouted, "I know that's Ben! Tell us what Ben said!"</p><p>"Be quiet! SHUSH! Shut your trap!!" Klaus screamed, "If you don't do this one by one, I swear, I will eat these papers and sit on the toilet right away!"</p><p> </p><p>Number Five stared at the letter of reply in his hand.</p><p>This was the seventeenth time he had read this letter in two days. But who could blame him? He had nothing else to do anyway.</p><p>Since he manually removed the signal receiver buried in his abdomen (and confirmed that it was the only signal receiver), he had been staying in this room--not the small glass cell, but a proper room: about 25 square in size, with a double bed, writing desk, small sofa, separate toilet and bathroom, and a mini kitchen equipped with coffee machine and microwave. Not bad, Five thought, if he didn’t still have the braces on his neck, wrists and ankles, a little too tight.</p><p>He turned over the letters again and read them from the beginning for the eighteenth time.</p><p> </p><p>Ben's grammar was still impeccable. Every time Five read the first sentence, he couldn't help smiling.</p><p>He distinctly remembered all the rules in this little language system they invented, just like Five himself. Those days and nights, Ben would sneak up to the attic after midnight and climbed into Five’s bedroom through the window. Sometimes Five would blink directly into Ben's room. Although the former seemed to be safer. It was always easy for Dad to find out when they used their powers. Maybe he also implanted a signal receiver in them...</p><p>Ben would bring his books, those literature, Tolkien, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Le Guin , Bulgakov... and Five would prepare his books on mathematics, fractals, partial differentials equations, P/NP, closure problems...They would discuss day and night which language was more refined, proficient, and elegant (not that Five did not appreciate Tolstoy or Chekhov. Ah if there was a language comparable to the language of mathematics, it would be their work) to determine whose ideas would be incorporated into this new language system. For this reason, Ben once used his tentacles to whoop Five’s ass, and Five teleported to Ben's back, trying to strangle him with his tie. But thank goodness, all the efforts finally came to use.</p><p>In the letter Five sent, he briefly explained his current situation: everything was fine for him, he has reached an agreement with his imprisoner, the latter would offer protection for their personal safety and provide certain financial aids. The premise was that they would live in a designated hotel, accept certain levels of remote surveillance, no threatening public security, no using their abilities in public, and could otherwise do what they wanted. Once he found a way to get them home, he would take it. He promised.</p><p>Ben's reply was as concise as his letter: they understood his position and wish. They would try their best to cooperate. They hoped he could find a way home soon. And they all--</p><p>Five put down the letter and closed his eyes.</p><p>He still couldn't believe that he had agreed to this concept--the concept proposed by Ben-"We should have a word to refer to unconditional, unreserved, and irrational love."</p><p>"But if love is irrational, what’s the difference between love and hate?" Eleven-year-old Number Five protested, "What’s the difference between love and all animal instincts?"</p><p>"There is no difference!" Eleven-year-old Ben screamed, "This is your problem, Five! You think humans are superior to animals just because they can do one plus one equals two, but the reality is that we are no different from them! Deep down, our essence, the essence of animals, are one and the same. Just an endless desire to live on, to grow, and--"</p><p>To unconditionally, unreservedly, irrationally, love.</p><p>Ben won. He invented a new word that expresses love. And Five agreed.</p><p>Now he was starting at that word.</p><p> </p><p>"We believe in you. We all love you."</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>This looked like an interview.</p>
<p>It was the first reaction Five had when he walked into the test chamber.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The square room had nothing in it. The walls were as white as vanilla ice cream, and the faint blue light from the connecting brick cracks seemed to be the only light source in the room. Without a window to the outside world, it was difficult to feel the passage of time in here. The only window was located near the top of the wall, leading to the control room. Five could imagine Stark standing there and overlooking the entire test chamber. All the data obtained here would be transmitted to the control room in real time, where several researchers and interns sat and analysed them simultaneously.</p>
<p>But, as of right now, Stark was standing in the test chamber, right in front of Five. A man and a woman stood beside him: The man was the pilot behind the blue armour, wearing a military uniform at the moment, his legs supported by some auxiliary machinery; the other was a lady with light freckles on her face, wearing a professional yet elegant dress.</p>
<p>Five had seen this lady before, just once, the day after his operation to remove the signal receiver. As he urged Friday several times to notify Stark to start the experiment right away but got no reply, he planned to confront Stark in person. That was when this woman, who introduced herself as "Pepper" Potts, showed up in his studio. However, according to the information he found on the Internet, her real name was Virginia Potts, the real head of Stark Industry.</p>
<p>"Tony believes your current condition is not suitable for testing." Ms. Potts said. "You need to wait for the incision to fully heal."</p>
<p>"It is not relevant to the test." Five stated, "I can use my powers at any state. You can tell Stark."</p>
<p>"I don't think that’s what Tony is concerned about." Potts said with a smile, as she proceeded to sit on the sofa next to his bed. Then she saw the letter on the desk.</p>
<p>"It seems that you finally got into contact with your family?"</p>
<p>Five didn't understand why she suddenly changed subject. He wanted to interrupt. "Why do you care?" He wanted to bluntly ask. "You are wasting my time." He wanted to ridicule her. "Stark doesn't care if I’m dead or alive after the test." Every minute he spent in this room doing nothing only mounted to the suffocating anxiety he felt. But in the end, he did not say any of these. For some reason, the woman's eyes prevented him from lashing out. They were a pair of smart and insightful eyes, from a good, kind soul.</p>
<p>He just nodded as a response.</p>
<p>"You must be missing them terribly." Potts said. "Our facility has the most advanced medical equipment and health experts. I assure you in two days, when your body is fully recovered, we can begin the tests. Before that happens, you can go wherever you want in the facility, using the lounge, living room, kitchen, or computer. If you have any needs, just call Friday, or Rhoedy and myself for that matter."</p>
<p>"I'm grateful." Five said with a grin. He didn't mean to sound aggressive, but Potts still sensed the irony in his tone.</p>
<p>"...I don't want to make excuses for what Tony is doing." She said, unexpectedly to Five, while standing up from the sofa, "I don't think it’s the right thing to do. It’s certainly not a nice thing to do. But the purpose of this matter is beyond me. It’s beyond Tony. Beyond all of us."</p>
<p>Five looked up at her, confused in where the conversation was going. But he still listened intently.</p>
<p>"Tony is not a cruel person." Eventually she managed to say this. "I can't ask you to forgive him for what he’s doing. I only ask you...not to hurt him. Is it too much to ask?"</p>
<p>Five did not answer. His thoughts drifted all the way to the past, to the first couple of days of joining the Temps Commission. His first mission. He could not remember all his missions, but he remembered his first and the last ones. He remembered returning to the hotel after the job was finished, looking at his hands. There was no trace of blood on his hands, nor signs of tremor on his fingertips. He had neither insomnia nor nightmares that night. After waking up from a good night sleep, he looked at himself in the mirror, feeling sick, proud, and somewhat like a clown.</p>
<p>"I know a cruel person when I see one, ma’am." After a moment of silence, Five raised his head and said. "Stark is not one of them."</p>
<p>He saw Potts' eyes widen, perhaps out of surprise, or maybe his tone and expression revealed something. But he decided not to dwell on it. He did not dislike this lady, even felt she appeared trustworthy if he were to trust his instinct.</p>
<p>"I promise you I won't hurt him. As long as he doesn't hurt my family."</p>
<p>Potts gave him a relieved and grateful smile.</p>
<p>"Sounds fair enough."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Tony was restless.</p>
<p>Though he had been waiting impatiently for this day to come, now it’s finally here, he could not help but feel nervous. After bringing the boy into the test chamber, all researchers exited and went back to the control room upstairs, leaving only four people in the room, including Pepper and Rhodey. The boy was wearing the test suit Tony made for him, which might be the only good sign.</p>
<p>Tony could hardly imagine that even a piece of clothes would raise such an argument--everything about this boy was a huge, convoluted vortex of trouble. When he took the suit he spent the last three days making and went to visit Five, who had moved into his luxurious Thumbelina suite, the day before the test, Tony did not expect the reaction he was thrown at.</p>
<p>"What the hell is this?" The boy pointed at the test suit. Though it was called a test suit, the quality in fact was by no means inferior to any Avengers suits designed and manufactured by Tony himself, including the new Spider suit he made for Peter which could resist a Tomahawk missile. The boy’s tone was disgusted. "I'm not interested in seeing your teen phase cosplay collection, Stark."</p>
<p>"I beg your pardon?" Tony didn't want to admit it, but his pride was seriously hurt. "Do you know this suit contains the world's most cutting-edge technology? Do you have any idea how many people would kill to get an opportunity to try on a Stark tailor-made suit?"</p>
<p>"Tailor-made?" Five's eyes narrowed. "You <em>sized</em> me?"</p>
<p>"Don't make it sound weird, you gremlin. I don't have baby pyjamas lying around for reference." Tony rolled his eyes. "And this kind of clothes won’t work if it’s not skin-tight. Why don’t you try it on? It looked quite large, but it’s got an auto-recognition system wired in the fibre which will shrink or enlarge based on the body type that wears it--"</p>
<p>"I’m NOT wearing it." The boy spit through his teeth. "Where’s my own clothes?"</p>
<p>"I burnt it." Tony said swiftly. "Considering you were suspected of being an alien, your clothes to some extent are UFOs carrying an alien body. It’s only safe to--"</p>
<p>"You burnt it...?" Five's eyes widened. Only then did Tony saw the anger in those big green eyes—more furious than the time when he stabbed an IV rod into his chest armour.</p>
<p>"<em>You have no right</em>--" The boy glared at Tony, stepping closer with every word. His lips trembled slightly as he spoke, each letter lit with rage. "Listen closely, Stark. You better understand the premise of my cooperation is based on a clear line of boundary we both respect. And that line is certainly not drawn by you."</p>
<p>"Okay! Okay! I was just teasing you." Tony's waist bent back to maintain a safe distance until he couldn’t bend anymore, then he put up his hands. "I'm joking. I didn't burn your stupid Eaton uniform. I just took’em for thorough analysis and disinfected them. It's now ironed and neatly folded, just waiting for some male-lolita dude in his fifties to squeeze himself in--seriously, you call my suit a cosplay?"</p>
<p>Five did not respond, but his expression finally relaxed a little. Tony quietly breathed a sigh of relief. Jesus Christ, he thought, this kid was scarier than the younger sister in &lt;Heritage&gt;.</p>
<p>"But your college boy uniform designed to limit hyperactivity of adolescent teens is not suitable for what we are going to do, is it? Actually, it’s not designed for combat at all. That's why I made this test suit. Unless you would rather wear a medical gown for the whole experiments..."</p>
<p>Five had walked back to where he stood, his posture no longer aggressive. Tony looked at him for a while, then threw the test suit on the bed.</p>
<p>"Wear it or don’t. It’s up to you." He said with a shrug. "If you want so badly your uniform, I can have Dummy deliver it to you. It’s intact, including that elementary school level of art design emblem. That umbrella thing, because that’s what you care so much about, isn’t it?"</p>
<p>Five snorted.</p>
<p>"You do realise that’s kind of masochistic of you, right? A member of a totalitarian collective, obsessed with and dependent on the symbol of said collective, something like Stockholm Syndrome—"</p>
<p>"Get out, Stark. Or I’ll break your arm at such an angle even your armour won’t know how to get over the arch."</p>
<p>Fortunately, Tony's forearm did not dangle like a pendulum.</p>
<p>But if he took off the restraints on the boy's neck, wrists and ankles, what would happen then? After all, he had no means to instantly detain a person who could bend time and space to his will. The best version of a disaster—Five disappeared from this room, and Tony may or may not be able to capture him again. The worst version of a disaster--Five hurt or took Pepper and Rhodey hostage, the two most important people in the world to him, who insisted on being here with him for some reason Tony couldn’t entirely understand.</p>
<p>Five saw right through his doubts.</p>
<p>"Just get on with it already, Stark." The boy shook his head. "If you don’t trust me, break my arm or leg, whatever, I don’t care. It’s not gonna affect my powers anyway, just make my landing a bit...less precise."</p>
<p>"Relax, kid." Rhodey interrupted, before Tony could answer, almost immediately after Five finished his sentence.</p>
<p>"No one needs to break an arm or a leg."</p>
<p>Rhodes walked towards Five with a steady pace. One could hardly see his spine had been severely injured a few months before, his lower limbs almost completely paralysed.</p>
<p>With the help of prosthetic tools, he stood with one knee on the ground and unbuckled the braces on the boy's feet, then his hands and neck.</p>
<p>"...Thank you." Five said. For the first time it sounded like a real kid’s voice to Tony.</p>
<p>"You're welcome." Rhodey smiled. Their eyes briefly met. Afterwards, Rhodey stood up and walked back to Tony, patting his upper arm. Tony also noticed Five's eyes following Rhodes, showing gratitude and a look that Tony could only call "respect."</p>
<p>And so, the test began.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Since you refuse to use a signal implant, I’ll have to inject this disposable probe before each test."</p>
<p>Stark's voice came from an invisible speaker but felt like it came from every corner of the room at the same time. He and his accomplices have returned to the control room upstairs, and Five was the only one left. From his position, he could only see Stark if he stood really close to the lookout window, whereas Stark could probably monitor the test chamber 360 degrees, similar to a domed dance room Dad used to train them once upon a time.</p>
<p>As soon as Stark's voice dropped, one of the bricks on the wall protruded, pushing out a device that looked like a hand sanitizer in a public restroom. Five hesitantly placed his hand under the place where the gel usually discharged, now with a blinking blue light, and suddenly felt a sting.</p>
<p>"Ouch." He withdrew instantly his hand and saw the tips of his index and middle fingers now beeping with a similar blue light. Two needle ends attached to his fingertips, rounded in shape and transparent in colour.</p>
<p>"The signal acquisition device is nano-level in size so you shouldn’t feel any pain. But since you insist on taking it out afterwards, I had to make the end have volume. You might feel a sting every time it’s injected or pulled out."</p>
<p>"Why are all your inventions so sadistic, Stark?"</p>
<p>"Stop being curious, Peter Pan. You’re under the age limit."</p>
<p>The wall surrounding him changed again. This time, a row of red cross-shaped marks appeared on the wall, distributed regularly. Each mark was placed 1.5 meters from the adjacent one, spreading across all four side walls.</p>
<p>"Alright, let's start with the basics. Spatial jump." Stark spoke again, voice delighted. "Teleport to each mark and touch the marks with the probed hand. It does not need to be in order, but you only need to touch each mark once, unless you have a special feeling for a certain mark...Ready? Start."</p>
<p>Five did not move.</p>
<p>"Really?" He looked up at Stark behind the window.</p>
<p>"What? Dummy fed you too much carbon your space Genie don’t like you now?"</p>
<p>"I haven't been tested in such a disabled manner since I was five years old."</p>
<p>"Hey, that’s a very discriminating way of saying ‘I am bored’—"</p>
<p>Tony stopped talking all of a sudden, because he saw a flood of data appearing on the screen above him. He was so concentrated on the data he did not even notice the the blue light beaming from test chamber below like fireworks. Three seconds later, Five re-appeared in the same position he stood before, bored out of his mind.</p>
<p>"You got what you wanted?" The boy grinned in his signature way, mouth wide and dimple deep. "Is there enough data to tutor basic math for your son?"</p>
<p>"Even a world-renowned pianist begins his daily practice from the scales. You better step down from the clouds, genius, before you fall flat on your face." Tony said. But his eyes stared at the data on the computer screen, still showing an awe-inspiring smile. "It seems you can close this distance pretty quickly. What’s the farthest distance you’ve jumped?"</p>
<p>Five sneered. "Are you asking me to actually show you? Or just hypothetically?"</p>
<p>"Why, you can jump to California from here?"</p>
<p>"Do you have an identical test chamber in California?"</p>
<p>"No. But I have a private beach. If you jump over, the beach is yours."</p>
<p>"Stark. I’m serious. Whether I jump to California or not, you room sure as hell won’t be able to measure it. It's too small."</p>
<p>"Why don't you try it?"</p>
<p>"Stark..."</p>
<p>"Here. Try to jump to that mark."</p>
<p>A red cross appeared on the wall again, but this time there was only one.</p>
<p>"You are wasting our time." Five looked up at him impatiently.</p>
<p>"If you're truly so fast--" Tony shrugged, "It’s a microsecond, a millisecond of loss anyway."</p>
<p>Five sighed, stared at the sign near him, and clenched his fists. Blue energy rippled from his hands. He took a deep breath and disappeared from the test chamber.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>About a second later, Five materialised into the room, almost unable to stand, staggered a few steps forward and fell on the wall, barely had time to rub his hand on the mark before slamming his shoulder against the wall, then slowly sliding onto the ground.</p>
<p>"...What just happened?" Next to Tony, an intern whispered in disbelief. His computer almost crushed by the amount of data flowing in at once.</p>
<p>Tony stared at the test chamber from the control room, his lips curving up into a fascinated smirk. A single red mark shone on the wall, but its position had shifted from where it used to be.</p>
<p>"Exactly as I thought..." He murmured. The intern raised his head, looking at Tony in utter confusion. "He has remote sensing ability...It’s not just a function of space but time...That’s how he pin-points the destination...Of course. Or else he won’t be able to move to places he’s never been too...My God this is fucking cool..."</p>
<p>"Mr. Stark...?" The intern asked tentatively.</p>
<p>After a while of just breathing, Five yelled from downstairs. His tone was far more intense and angrier.</p>
<p>"Stark!" He sat in the corner, his voice still rusty and exhausted. However this did not compromise his attitude. "The fuck did you do?"</p>
<p>"You just jumped seven hundred miles!" Tony exclaimed, overjoyed. "You traversed seven hundred miles in less than a second! Imagine my armour doing that without crushing me to death..."</p>
<p>"Seven hundred..." Five looked up to Tony, astounded, only to realise that the position of the mark had changed, albeit only a few feet from the original position...And then it just clicked.</p>
<p>"From the moment you took off, the mark started spinning across the room at a speed of one kilometre per second." Tony smiled. "I originally wanted to set it to the speed of light, but I kind of wanted to see you just running around the room."</p>
<p>"But...it doesn't..." Five still couldn’t believe it, checking the mark on the wall then his own hands. "I calculate the distance between me and the target before I blink. Even if the mark appears elsewhere, I’m going to hit the wall it was on a moment before..."</p>
<p>"It seems you don't even know the full picture of your own abilities, Akira." Tony said. "Your ability locks on the 'target' you determined to travel to, not the target's current 'time', because time is a by-product of your ability—it is what you control—it’s a variable, under your command, not an output. So when you confirm a target, in this case, the mark, not the wall it’s attached to, no matter where it is and what status it’s in after one second, two seconds, or one microsecond, you will reach the target because time is contained in your body. "</p>
<p>Five did not say anything. He subconsciously touched his chest, his breath trembling, not knowing whether it was because of Tony's words or because he was still in extreme fatigue.</p>
<p>"...I need to see the data to confirm your hypothesis." A minute later, Five broke the silence.</p>
<p>"Of course." Tony said. "Before that...Would you mind doing it again? You know, data can only be trusted after repeated experiments..."</p>
<p>Five closed his eyes and took a deep breath.</p>
<p>"No. Stark. I can't do it again."</p>
<p>"What? What do you mean you can't do it again? Was that just dumb luck?"</p>
<p>"No, it’s not...I..." The boy gritted his teeth, as if the next words were an embarrassment to say out loud. But he eventually bit down his pride and said. "I need to rest."</p>
<p>Tony blinked.</p>
<p>"You need to rest?" He repeated. "We’ve only started testing for less than an hour, and you need to rest? What else do you need? Fresh Spring water from the Alps? An ostrich feather fan perhaps? Do you need twenty layers of velvet mattresses so you don’t feel the pea underneath, your royal highness?"</p>
<p>"No!" the boy screamed. His voice made several interns tremble.</p>
<p>"I'm not..." Five took a deep breath, trying to press down his anger, and began in a slightly calmer tone. "It's not me that needs rest. It's my power. Using it consumes my stamina. Depending on the nature of use, the degree of consumption varies. You just let me run 700 miles in one jump, Stark. I haven’t made such a long-distance jump for years. Adding to the dozen previous jumps, I need some time to recover. Three minutes...maybe five minutes. I can’t use my powers until then."</p>
<p>This time it was Tony's turn to be surprised. He shifted his eyes towards Rhodey, who had been standing at the door the entire time, watching the process of the experiment, but did not make any comments.</p>
<p>"Have you heard of such a thing?" Tony said, taking the microphone off his collar so Five wouldn’t be able to hear them talking.</p>
<p>Rhodey shook his head. He also looked quite shocked, with a hint of suspicion.</p>
<p>"I have never seen any superpowered beings have problem like that." The Colonel said. "To be honest, I always felt their power was a violation of the laws of the universe, conservation of energy and some other shit."</p>
<p>Tony shook his head and picked up the microphone again.</p>
<p>"Do your brothers and sisters have the same problem?" He asked. "Will their powers run out if they are too tired?"</p>
<p>"...No. At least I haven't seen it." Five replied, a sign of reluctancy in his voice. "But they don't use their powers as frequently as I do."</p>
<p>Tony casted a look at Rhodey, who shrugged, his lips set in a grim line.</p>
<p>"...You said you need three minutes? Or five minutes? Which if the two? There’s 40% difference between these figures."</p>
<p>"I don't know." Five answered honestly. "Most of the time I need three minutes, but sometimes it's longer, maybe it's related to the nature of the previous jumps, maybe it's the environment--For example, if there is anyone use this time to keep bugging me."</p>
<p>"A tempting idea," Tony said. "Then let us take a break for three minutes."</p>
<p>He put down the microphone and walked to Rhodes.</p>
<p>"Do you think he's bullshiting us?" He whispered. "Trying to buy time? What’s he planning to do with the time? Maybe it's a setup, making us think he is exhausted, but actually he is looking for a chance to jump out when our guard is low?"</p>
<p>"I don't know, Tony..." Rhodey looked conflicted, staring at the monitor above his head. "He does look tired...With all that sweat and his face..."</p>
<p>"Doesn't mean he can't teleport."</p>
<p>"Maybe. Or maybe, he was telling us the truth."</p>
<p>"Or maybe he's just pretending, like he did when he got here. This isn’t the first time he used weaknesses to force our guard down."</p>
<p>"I really don't know about this one, Tony..."</p>
<p>"If he is lying, he could appear behind you any second now, choking you out. Or me. I can't take that risk, Rhodey, especially when you are here, and Pepper’s just upstairs... …"</p>
<p>"What are you gonna do then? What can you do?"</p>
<p>Tony turned around and looked over the window. He picked up the microphone.</p>
<p>"Hey, old man, you just said three minutes or five minutes. Why haven't you measured it already? If it were me, I would narrow the accuracy down to the second, because in battle it could mean life or death, right? Ever thought about that?"</p>
<p>The boy gasped. He had an annoyed expression on his face and obviously didn't want to spend any more energy talking, but he still answered.</p>
<p>"My father tested it many years ago. When I was actually thirteen. Time was five minutes. But after that many years had passed, my body has grown and I have become more skilled in the use of these abilities. My adult body can recover within three minutes. But I don’t know what my current body plus years of experiences can do. And I’ve only been like this for maybe a week, so I’m sorry I can’t give you an exact number, Stark. Especially with you being hyperverbal just introduced another variable."</p>
<p>"Do you want to test it?"</p>
<p>"……What?"</p>
<p>"Now, right here. We have the laboratory, and we have the right equipment. You’ll never find a controlled environment like this again. So, don't you want to know? The limit of your power down to six digits after the decimal place. "</p>
<p>"...How are you going to measure that? Another high-tech torture device? "</p>
<p>"Oh no. Doesn’t have to be that complicated. We’ll just use some fundamental but effective concepts." Tony looked back at Rhodey and nodded. "From now on, you’ll try to jump every three seconds until your power is restored. Then we restart the test, until your power stops working, then you’ll continue to try to start the engine every three seconds, so on and so forth. This way we can get a curve, the number of times you use your power versus the time for it to run out, a relationship between the two, etc. What do you think?"</p>
<p>Five raised his head, looked at the monitor room and Tony Stark, who stood right in front of the glass window like a ghost. He was surprised, doubting, not sure whether the other Stark’s intentions were as pure as he stated, or with some malicious purpose which Five could not fully understand. But if anyone wanted to know the full extent of Five's power, it would be Five himself. Why would his ability stop working from time to time? What made them stop working? How long would they stay stagnant? Would the stagnation become longer with continued use, or would they recover faster due to more practise...As Stark said, the place was a rare opportunity of a controllable lab environment for such test.</p>
<p>Five stood up, ignoring his muscles twitching and his breath hurting from the inside, and clenched his fists again.</p>
<p> </p>
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